Me'Lea Connelly, Director of the Association for Black Economic Power, and Patrick Troska, Executive Director of the Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of MN, discuss their partnership on the Village Trust Financial Cooperative. 

http://bit.ly/villagetrustfinancialcoop

The Association for Black Economic Power (ABEP) is working to establish Village Trust Financial Cooperative, Minnesota's only Black-led financial institution. This concept was born 18 months ago in response to the killing of Philando Castile, as a way to use our economic power as a form of resistance to build the financial resilience of our communities, and insulate against extraction and divestment. This is not a new concept, but a strategy with a legacy woven throughout Black history. Financial liberation through institutional power has long been successfully used in lifting communities from economic pain into promise.

With the support of The Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota, we have spent the last 12 months doing the leg-work, creating the structure and building public commitment necessary to open Village Trust in North Minneapolis in 2019. We are now looking to build a body of supporters and investors who believe in igniting an economic renaissance by, for and with the Black community. We seek to build a network of supporters who see this project as an opportunity to unify a community torn apart by inequitable systems that persist in our state. Village Trust has the potential to be a powerful tool in reversing our equity chasm.  However, it will truly take a village to make this happen.