JPMorgan Chase to invest $4M in Equitable Wilmington

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) made a commitment to Delaware in 2015, when it announced a major hiring push for new tech employees in Delaware. Since then, it’s helped launch the professional development nonprofit Year Up Wilmington, hosts its Generation Tech training program for high schoolers and, just this month, announced a policy center aimed at increasing “second chance” jobs for formerly incarcerated individuals.

The fintech corporation’s latest investment in Delaware? A $4 million, three-year investment in Equitable Wilmington, a collaborative aimed at promoting inclusive growth in Wilmington’s underserved West, East and Northeast neighborhoods.

The Equitable Wilmington collaborative includes Cinnaire Lending Corporation, True Access Capital and NCALL Loan Fund. Funds will be used to support affordable housing development, small businesses and community facilities, as well as address access to healthy foods and health care facilities through partnerships with the healthcare sector.

“We’re very proud to make this investment in Wilmington, a community that’s so important to JPMorgan Chase,” said Tom Horne, the company’s market director for Delaware, in a press statement. “This city has been making meaningful progress but we know there’s still a lot of work to be done. We want to show up in a big way to help address the challenges and we’re excited about the great work that this collaborative will do.”

While there have been many projects in recent years addressing Wilmington’s inequity, the city continues to have one of the highest concentrations of poverty among small U.S. cities.

To address neighborhood issues, Equitable Wilmington will build the capacity of community-based organizations to:

• Preserve or rehab over 100 affordable housing units
• Provide 48 small business loans totaling $1 million
• Develop community facilities that create assets and resources for the community

“Our collaborative brings together a depth of expertise in community-led development and inclusive growth,” said Dionna J. Sargent, Cinnare’s Wilmington community development market leader. “As a cohesive unit, we can make a significant concentrated effort and investment in economically marginalized communities that surround the Central Business District to address some of the social inequities that have long been in place.”

This $4 million investment is the result of Equitable Wilmington’s participation in JPMorgan Chase’s annual nationwide Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods competition. Equitable Wilmington was one of seven U.S. communities selected this year out of 75 applications across 49 U.S. cities.