Dear Friends and Valued Partners,

Happy New Year to the Prosperity Now community!

At the start of a year, I like to remember all the important strides we’ve made to shape the outlook for advancing racial economic equity in the months ahead – and I enter 2022 energized by all that we have planned. We’ve kicked off the new year by partnering with Nonprofit Quarterly on a powerful weekly series examining how targeted universalism—a narrative framework that advocates the use of targeted approaches to achieve universal goals—can inform efforts to close the racial wealth gap, community by community. I started the conversation by sharing a call for strategic thinking to help close the racial wealth divide, and yesterday, my friend, john a. powell, wrote about going beyond equity to close the racial wealth gap.

A new year also means another opportunity to gather change agents and leaders across the field at our biannual Prosperity Summit – and this year, our plans are even bolder and braver as we propel a movement that envisions an economy that works for all of us and a world where everyone can build sustainable wealth and prosper. Make sure to save the date for Sept. 19-21!

Finally, I’m starting off the new year inspired by our staff who inform their work by remembering our history and the elders who paved the way for racial economic justice. As we dive into 2022, let us remember how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., acknowledged the tensions that give way to transformative justice, and that though the work may be painful or messy at times, we can team up to usher in a new age of justice.

Introducing a New Series About How Targeted Universalism Can Help Us Close the Racial Wealth Divide

We’re excited to share the recent launch of a new collaboration with Nonprofit Quarterly, The Promise of Targeted Universalism: Community Leaders Respond. In this weekly series, influential community leaders will author pieces that examine how a targeted universalism approach can inform our efforts to close the racial wealth divide. We’ve kicked off the series with pieces from our President & CEO, Gary Cunningham, and john a. powell, Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. Check out the pieces below, and don’t forget to follow us on social media to be alerted of new releases!

• Closing the Racial Wealth Divide – A Call for Strategic Thinking, Gary Cunningham, Prosperity Now 
• Beyond Equity: Targeted Universalism and the Closing of the Racial Wealth Gap, john a. powell, Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley

Expanding Tax Preparation Services for All: An Interview with Cara Cardotti, Tax Assistance Program Director, United Way of Greater Richmond and Petersburg

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform the economic landscape for families across the country, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs and other tax-focused organizations were forced to tackle new challenges in 2021.  This included implementing virtual delivery methods for services, advocating for the expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), and supporting families through stressful and unparalleled financial hardships. We sat down with Cara Cardotti, the Tax Assistance Program Director of United Way of Greater Richmond and Petersburg and the Chair of Prosperity Now’s Taxpayer Opportunity Network (TON) Steering Committee, to discuss her program’s work, reflections on 2021 tax season and her thoughts on the future of the field. Read more.

Homeland Security Today: IRS Selects New IRSAC Members for 2022, Rebecca Thompson, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships & Network Building

Forbes: 200 Episodes: Tax Notes Talk's Defining Interviews, Rebecca Thompson, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships & Network Building

Without the Extended Child Tax Credit Expansion, Families are Left Out in the Cold this Winter

On January 14, 36 million families should have received their seventh monthly Child Tax Credit (CTC) payment. However, since the Build Back Better Act is held up in Congress, families must go without this essential support that has helped many afford transportation, winter clothes, food, utilities and childcare. Our Associate Director of Policy, Joanna Ain, expands on the implications of this inaction in a new blog. 

Want to help Prosperity Now fight to keep millions of children out of poverty? Ask your senators to pass the Build Back Better Act to extend the Child Tax Credit expansion!

What Families Need to Know About the CTC in 2022 | The Center for Law and Social Policy
A new piece from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) discussed the impact of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) for families across the country. The temporary expansions to the CTC have dramatically reduced child poverty, especially for Black and Latinx kids.

Uprooting Racism to Advance Health Equity | Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
A recent blog from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial reckoning that followed the anguishing murder of George Floyd. In an important step to advance racial equity and justice, many states and cities across the nation have declared racism a public health crisis.

The Path Forward on Build Back Better Must Include Child Care and Universal Pre-K | Center for American Progress
A new article from the Center for American Progress discusses the importance of including childcare and universal pre-kindergarten in the Build Back Better Act. The economic impact of the ongoing pandemic continues to reveal the childcare sector’s vulnerabilities.

Should the Community Reinvestment Act Consider Race? | Urban Institute
A new report from the Urban Institute examines the overlap between current Community Reinvestment Act lending for purchase mortgages to LMI borrowers and neighborhoods and lending to minority borrowers and minority neighborhoods.

How Data Collection Can Make Small Business Lending More Equitable | Prosperity Now
This blog from Prosperity Now explains how a proposed rule to the Dodd-Frank Act requiring financial institutions to report data on their small business lending to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would improve equity in lending.  

11 Charts Examining the Racial Wealth Gap | Morningstar
Morningstar shares key statistics about the impact of the racial divide on income, savings and financial well-being.