The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and Accelerator for America Partner to Promote Opportunity in Opportunity Zones

$1 Million Commitment to Help Distressed Communities Through Inclusive Investment

The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and Accelerator for America (AFA), a non-profit consortium of mayors, labor and business leaders, and urban and economic development experts, today announced a unique partnership to combine their expertise to drive inclusive investment in distressed communities across the United States. The announcement was made at the first Forbes Opportunity Zones Summit in Newark, NJ.

The partnership includes an $850,000 philanthropic grant from the Mastercard Impact Fund to help the Accelerator realize its goal of helping 50 city leaders and their communities maximize the potential of the federal Opportunity Zone incentive. Additionally, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth will provide in-kind support in the form of data science expertise, economic development tools and research to help city leaders make evidence-based decisions.

Together, the partnership will provide community leaders across the country with: Data-driven insights around the current economic activity in their Opportunity Zones; assistance in building an Investment Prospectus through the Accelerator’s toolkit; consulting on how to structure and mobilize inclusive investments; analysis of unmet needs for investment potential; and ways to measure progress over time.

“We are likely to get better outcomes if we start with better inputs,” said Shamina Singh, Founder and President, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.  “That’s why we are working with Accelerator for America, to ensure city leaders can better prove the investment value of their neighborhoods and build cases to attract investments that will fulfill the long term needs of the local community. For Opportunity Zones to have the greatest chance of impacting those who need it most, we do need art but we also need a lot more science.”

“This partnership with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth is a powerful show of confidence in the Accelerator's mission to drive national change through local solutions -- from the bottom, up. Mastercard's support and deep insights into the economic power of people living in the Zones will provide key data to help local communities steer Opportunity Zone capital into inclusive, transformative investments,” said Accelerator for America CEO Rick Jacobs.

“To assure that Opportunity Zones will truly create opportunity, cities must take informed action. Mastercard's partnership with Accelerator for America will connect cities with the in-depth data they need to make strategic decisions that will deliver big for their underserved communities,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who chairs the Accelerator’s Advisory Council.

Communities across the United States are beginning to mobilize around Opportunity Zones, economically-distressed communities where new investments, under certain conditions, may be eligible for preferential tax treatment. Accelerator for America is working closely with city leaders to help maximize this unique opportunity by providing expertise, training and tools to level the playing field between the public and private sectors.

As a philanthropic partner, Mastercard is bringing a new dimension to the discussion through its data science expertise, which helps city leaders identify patterns of spend, based on aggregated and anonymized transaction data, to deliver a timely view of the economic activity taking place in Opportunity Zones and understand potential unmet needs of the community. For example, Mastercard’s data driven insights can help identify neighborhoods where spend on groceries is rising but most of that spending occurs in other parts of the city because no grocery store exists nearby.

This is the first of a series of grants from Mastercard supporting inclusive economic development across the U.S.

About the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth

The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth focuses on promoting equitable and sustainable economic growth and financial inclusion around the world. As a subsidiary of Mastercard, the Center leverages the company’s data, expertise and technology, along with administering the Mastercard Impact Fund’s philanthropic investments, to empower a community of thinkers, leaders and innovators on the front lines of inclusive growth.  For more information and to receive its latest insights, follow the Center on Twitter @CNTR4growth, subscribe to its newsletter and visit www.mastercardcenter.org.

About Accelerator for America

Accelerator for America launches and replicates local initiatives to improve people's lives in communities across the country to create national change from the bottom up. The Accelerator developed the "Investment Prospectus" tool to help local communities partner with the private sector to steer capital toward investments that deliver a return for investors and local residents. Opportunity Zones could attract $100 billion in capital.

The Accelerator is also working with local governments across the country to generate local infrastructure revenues instead of relying on the unmet federal infrastructure promise. An example is Los Angeles County's Measure M, which was approved in November 2016 and generates $120 billion and 465,000 career jobs. On that same election day, which also elected Donald Trump to the White House, local governments nationwide approved $230 billion in local infrastructure improvements.

Visit: http://www.acceleratorforamerica.com/