Expanding Capacity, Building Resilience
Every day, southern city leaders grapple with a range of deeply entrenched challenges. Extreme poverty, sluggish job growth, and widespread economic inequities hinder small business development, restrict access to quality employment, and limit affordable housing options. These long-standing issues connected to historical and present-day inequitable policies can create a cycle of disadvantages which are difficult for local leaders to tackle. Recent natural disasters have compounded these struggles further challenging already vulnerable communities and making recovery and progress even more difficult.
Despite these challenges, the South holds tremendous potential for growth and equity. The National Equity Atlas reveals that achieving racial equity in income could increase the national GDP by $2.8 trillion annually, benefiting all regions economically. As Southern cities look to the future, integrating economic inclusion strategies into frameworks of well-being and resilience is crucial for fostering the success and health of families, businesses, and communities.
“Thanks to Southern Cities for Economic Inclusion, we were able to create the Builder’s Blueprint Program. This program expands opportunities for minority contractors and is directly supportive of our mission to increase the diversity of our contractors and vendors. We are strengthening Chattanooga’s supplier diversity while creating critically needed economic opportunities for our minority community.”
Mayor Tim Kelly, City of Chattanooga, TN
The Southern Cities Economic Inclusion Initiative (SCEI)—now in its third iteration—supports municipal and community leadership to develop and enhance economic inclusion practices locally. The Southern Cities Economic Inclusion Initiative (SCEI) is a collaboration between NLC and philanthropic partners including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and The Annie E. Casey Foundation, and is conducted in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Participating cities benefit from valuable peer learning opportunities, comprehensive technical assistance, and grants for planning and implementation of economic inclusion strategies.
Between 2021 and 2024, NLC supported 15 cities to implement successful economic inclusion strategies, including:
- New legislation to expand services to disadvantaged businesses
- Programs to enable small local minority food businesses to obtain city contracts
- New city department established to support small business growth
- Millions in federal grants leveraged to support economic inclusion
- Launched a youth employment project, in partnership with the public school system.
Learn more about the successes and experiences from past SCEI cities in the Advancing Economic Resilience and Equity Report.
Cities from the following 10 states are eligible for SCEI: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
NLC will host two informational webinars in early 2025 to provide more information about SCEI and answer questions from prospective applicants. Want to learn more about the application process? Download our summary guide.
For more information about the SCEI initiative, contact Rosanna Mulcahy at eofe@nlc.org.
SCEI Letter of Interest
Thank you for your interest in NLC’s Southern Cities Economic Inclusion (SCEI) Initiative! If you are interested in learning more or plan to apply for this opportunity, please complete this online Letter of Interest (LOI) to provide NLC with more information about your community’s economic inclusion priorities. The online application will open in January 2025. Cities may submit the LOI survey until the application opens. Please indicate in the LOI survey if you have questions in advance of the webinars.
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