Joe Scantlebury Named as Next CEO of Living Cities

NEW YORK, July 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Living Cities, a collaborative of 19 major foundations and financial institutions that works to close racial income and wealth gaps in American cities, announced Tuesday that Joe Scantlebury will serve as the organization's next Chief Executive Officer starting Sept. 6. 

"Joe Scantlebury's leadership in civil rights, racial equity and economic justice spaces illustrates his deep commitment to advancing policies that close racial and socioeconomic gaps in our country," said Brandee McHale, President of the Citi Foundation and Head of Community Investing and Development at Citi. "Joe will be an excellent steward of Living Cities' work addressing racial disparities that exist across public, private, and philanthropic sectors so that all people can thrive – regardless of race or ethnicity. I look forward to working closely with Joe and charting the next chapter of Living Cities' work."

Scantlebury was most recently Vice President for Program Strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Mich., and Vice Chair of Living Cities' Board of Directors. He previously served as senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he led policy advocacy in the Northeast, Ohio, Arkansas, and Louisiana, as well as civil rights and equity initiatives.

"Living Cities was ahead of its time when it declared that its core mission would be eliminating the racial wealth gap in America's cities, years before the COVID-19 pandemic and global uprisings over racial injustice forced these issues to the center of the public debate," said Scantlebury. "After five years serving on our board, it is the honor of a lifetime to lead Living Cities as the next CEO. Living Cities plays a truly unique and indispensable role in the field, uniting cross-sector leaders from philanthropy, the private sector, and local government behind a common goal of ending racial disparities in access to capital and funding in communities across the country."

Living Cities was established in 1991 with a race-neutral focus on community development and building the capacity of local community development corporations. In 2007, as current CEO Ben Hecht joined Living Cities, the organization pivoted from a focus on community development to a cross-sector commitment to neighborhood and systems transformation. And over the following years - prompted by events including the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray, as well as calls by the organization's staff to embrace an antiracist approach to the work - Living Cities began infusing racial equity across its portfolio of initiatives.

In July 2019, the Board of Living Cities committed to another three-year funding round - the 10th such commitment since the organization's founding - with the explicit mission of putting racial disparities at the center of the collaborative, and seeking to use the organization's grants, loans, and influence to close the racial income and wealth gaps in American cities. Hecht's announcement in 2020 that he would be leaving Living Cities after 14 years prompted a national search for his replacement.

"I am truly fortunate to be joining Living Cities following Ben Hecht's incredible leadership over the last decade and half," Scantlebury said. "Ben's vision and values have both been crucial factors behind the success and impact of Living Cities. I am deeply grateful for his service and his example as a leader."

Scantlebury added: "The mission of Living Cities is deeply tied to my lifelong work advocating on behalf of the country's most vulnerable. But it's also personal. My mother emigrated from Panama and worked two jobs to raise me and my sister in the Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhoods in Brooklyn. But two jobs still weren't enough to keep the electricity from getting cut off, or stave off the threat of eviction. She, like millions of women and people of color in communities across the country, confronted systemic racism in nearly every aspect of her life, from employment to housing and beyond, and rooting out these injustices is precisely what motivates our work at Living Cities."

Donald Schwarz, Senior Vice President of Program at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, added: "Joe Scantlebury brings years of experience serving others and working to advance racial and economic equity across the country. It's clear he shares the same values that guide and define the mission of Living Cities – to harness the collective power of philanthropy, financial institutions, and local governments to tackle institutional and systemic racism that has too often kept people of color from building wealth. I cannot think of anyone better to lead this work than Joe."

Today, Living Cities leads three key initiatives, working with capital market players, community leaders, and the public sector to reduce barriers for people of color to start and grow businesses; build wealth; and exercise power, dignity and agency. Those initiatives include:

• Closing the Gaps Network: A ten-year initiative launched in October 2020 to bring together leaders from cities across the country who are committed to imagining what an anti-racist society might look like, and to playing an important role in closing racial income and wealth gaps through the transformation of local policies, practices, and operations.
  
  
• Capital for the New Majority: For over a decade, Living Cities has made direct impact investments through its two funds: the $38 million Catalyst Fund, which launched in 2008 and fully repaid investors earlier this year, and the $37 million Blended Catalyst Fund, which blends grant dollars, philanthropic, and commercial debt and has been deployed to show how capital can accelerate closing racial gaps when we put people of color in decision-making positions and challenge norms and definitions of creditworthiness that prevent entrepreneurs of color from accessing capital and growing their businesses.
  
  
• Member Collective Action: In 2019, Living Cities announced a historic recommitment with its board to leverage the collective power of the 19 foundations and financial institutions that serve as member institutions to eliminate racial wealth and income gaps.

About Living Cities
Founded in 1991, Living Cities is a collaborative of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions. Living Cities fosters transformational relationships across sectors to connect those who are willing to do the hard work of closing racial income and wealth gaps. The organization partners with cross-sector leaders in cities across the country to imagine and create an America in which all people are economically secure, building wealth and living abundant, dignified, and connected lives. To learn more about Living Cities and its member institutions, visit www.livingcities.org.

Contact: Jack Temple, [email protected], 734-395-8441
Raul Contreras, [email protected], 516-353-8486

SOURCE Living Cities

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https://livingcities.org