Fellowship Spotlight: Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth

With a background in financial services, deep experience with diverse communities, and a passion for closing the racial wealth gap, Aisha Weeks is working to build intergenerational wealth and financial well-being in Black communities across the United States.

Cultural + Community Context

Aisha Weeks, managing director of the Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth, began her banking career while living in the Flatbush/Prospect Park area of her hometown of Brooklyn. “I had the opportunity to work in different types of neighborhoods in terms of socioeconomics,” she shares, adding that she worked with high net worth clients alongside individuals and families from low- to moderate-income households. “I began to see the barriers of access,” Weeks reflects, “the differences in how credit was treated for one population versus the other.” 

Her awareness of these differences ultimately shifted her career trajectory. “I wanted to take my knowledge to folks that were really intimidated by the financial system — rightfully so because it was never designed to work for them.” Weeks redirected her energy to serving a different, more focused population through her volunteer work at a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) focused on providing working capital for “unbankable” business owners. The systemic discrimination that she witnessed while working with this demographic expanded her perspective and inspired her passion for financial empowerment. 

Redirecting the Focus: From Private to Public

Weeks’ newfound passion led her to enroll in grad school and become a National Urban Fellow. She then pivoted from the private to nonprofit sector, and worked for seven years on community reinvestment at the City of Cleveland, developing programs focused on financial inclusion and racial equity. 

As she deepened her work in the public sector, Weeks’ understanding of the pattern of racialized discrimination became more clear and urgent as she detected the damage being caused by a colorblind approach to lending. “The market is saying that if you make the same income, then surely you should be able to do X, Y, and Z. But we know that that's not true based on historic discrimination and lack of generational wealth.” She elevates the implicit assumption when lending is based solely on income — that Black, White, and all people with similar incomes also have the same level of assets and resources. 

“I began to see that dangling this carrot of CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) for banks to do right by communities wasn’t moving the needle. They’re putting out initiatives or grand gestures toward racial equity,” she shares, mentioning the temporary and seemingly superficial institutional responses to COVID-era racial unrest. “Some of it landed well,” she says, “but other efforts just faded into the background.”

Naming the Problem + Creating Solutions

“When it's so insidious that you can't see it anymore,” Weeks says of the racism baked into financial systems, “when you have the majority of folks thinking that there's no systemic racism that exists, it's a struggle. You can’t name the problem. That’s how incredibly powerful and destructive it is.”

Such power and destruction don’t come to be overnight. The inequities that Weeks is addressing as Managing Director of Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth are the result of laws, policies, and societal misconceptions that have been baked into the psyche of the United States since the forming of the nation.

Weeks points to the history of housing discrimination, elevating redlining as an example. “In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, African American and Black families did not have an opportunity to access capital to own homes.” The resulting inability to amass generational wealth has only served to widen the gap between Black Americans’ wealth and that of their White peers. “Black families currently have 10% of the wealth of White families,” Weeks says, “and race-neutral efforts haven’t helped to close this gap.” In fact, the racial wealth gap has only increased in recent years.   

Bridging the Racial Wealth Gap

The Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth’s explicit commitment to remedying this historic inequity drew Weeks to the work. “What Dearfield is seeking to accomplish resonated with me. To know that Dearfield was standing in to fill the gaps I’ve seen play out in my career was incredibly powerful.” 

The fund seeks to build generational wealth through home ownership, lending up to $40,000 in down-payment assistance for Black and African American families in the Denver Metro area, up to 15% of the purchase price. The loan is a 15-year note, considered to be a soft second mortgage, as there are no monthly payments or interest accumulation during the term. Historically, the average first time homeowner will either sell or refinance their home within 5-7 years of purchase. At that time, or at the end of the loan term, the homeowner will repay the original amount of down-payment assistance plus a 5% share of the appreciated value.

With their uniquely tailored approach, the fund intends to generate at least $100k net worth for each homeowner they lend to. Their goal is to help a minimum of 500 families through the deployment period, and generate anywhere from $50 million to $75 million in wealth for the Black community in Denver. “It’s exciting to lead a fund that is unapologetically for Black and African American families that’s able to target based on the historical discrimination that was faced,” Weeks shares. “We're going to provide the capital for Black families to be able to purchase this asset that could help them to build wealth, and by doing so, we’re seeking to bridge the racial wealth gap.”

Purposeful Wealth Building

“The beauty of the fund is not just the dollars on the street that we're deploying, but we have a comprehensive wraparound services program.” In addition to deploying capital directly, the Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth is partnering with foundations and others that are providing grants for a range of focused services that also play a role in families’ ability to build wealth. 

“The research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland shows us that, yes, homeownership can help to close the racial wealth gap, but families need to be able to hold onto that asset for an extended amount of time.” With this knowledge in mind, the fund looks at all of the barriers and pitfalls that could arise through the journey of homeownership. They identify partners that can provide things like strategies on wealth creation and homeowner clubs in order to better ensure that the asset is maintained and leveraged for generational wealth. “What we’ve seen in 2008 and other times is that, if you lose your home, it's no longer an asset. You're not building wealth.”

The Power of Partnerships 

“The Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth is currently being incubated at Gary Community Ventures, and their mission is very place-based. Their goal is to reshape the arc of opportunity for Colorado children and families.” Weeks highlights the importance of realizing that there are not only challenges unique to Black families, but also regional specificities that call for intentional design informed by the needs of the community being served. 

“But the great thing about it,” Weeks points out, “is that we recognize that this fund can help so many other cities and geographies around the country.” With cities like Seattle, Philadelphia, and Charlotte all expressing interest in the fund’s model, Weeks and her team are deploying a playbook for replication. They’re developing a community of practice in order to share what they’ve learned while allowing people to roll out their own funds based on the particulars of their respective communities. “It wouldn't necessarily be a Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth Charlotte. It would be helping those folks on the ground to execute it in their city.”

VC Include Fellowship

“I’m not only a first time BIPOC fund manager, but I’m also new to the world of venture capital,” Weeks shares, calling this a “double whammy” of a knowledge curve. She credits the VC Include Fellowship with giving her the language and skills to strengthen her sense of empowerment in her role and work. She also gained confidence in the ecosystem of racial-equity focused funds, a contrast to the conventional approach foundations have historically taken, saying, “Knowing that there’s a market for this will help us as we continue our work into 2023.”

And like so many of her peers, Weeks speaks to the power of the community she gained through her participation in the fellowship. “Just knowing that there are others out there like me, and that we can rely on each other for years to come, knowing that I have a network of other BIPOC fund managers to rely on and learn and share with feels like a safety net that I didn’t have before.” 

We’re honored to play a role in cultivating this type of community for Weeks, and we look forward to continuing to rally behind her work to close the racial wealth gap.