Rodney Foxworth:
Simon. So grateful to be here for the conversation and looking forward to it.

Simon Mainwaring:
Rodney, you’re doing such powerful work and such important work right now, and it’s, I’m always fascinated by the journey that anyone went on to actually end up in a position where we’re talking on the podcast. So give us a sense of what led you to kind of really lean into a nonprofit like common future and to really address marginalized communities? What’s your background?

Rodney Foxworth:
Thanks for opening up with that question, Simon, because I think oftentimes we don’t have enough discussion about the why and the journey that someone takes as it relates to the purpose that they find in their life and their career. And so for me, it’s a very deeply personal mission. I would say that it’s a calling in so many ways Simon. And so to begin with just really briefly, I think for me, the context really begins with the fact that for your listeners, I am from a place Baltimore, Maryland, in the US that is what are these remarkable cities that I think has been impacted by so many economic and racial injustices for many, many years. It’s a city in a wish you really get to see up close the ramifications of things that are becoming really buzzwords. That might be really hard for people to connect with, but anti-black racism, economic dislocation.

Rodney Foxworth:
You get to see the real impacts of mass incarceration and over policing in communities, particularly African-American communities. Baltimore is a place that is majority African-American, I believe 63% or so African-American and I benefited from having a wonderful household, a working class black household, in which my parents oftentimes were working two to three jobs each, my mother and my father to provide a life for their children. And so I witnessed up close what it was like for a working family in the United States to really struggle to have a meaningful life. When they had some relative prosperity that really elevated to all of the things that we want to aspire to. Right. And having witnessed that and experienced that directly firsthand, I also had a set of experiences Simon in which I really lived and continued to live with the ramifications of anti-black racism. There’s this, the story that I began to be more comfortable sharing in which when I was in the third grade Simon, I was accused by a teacher, my teacher of being unable to read and she on my assignments and in testing.

Rodney Foxworth:
And my mother of course understood that this was not the case. And my mother had made sure that I was not only reading proficiently, but reading well above my grade level. I was a shy kid. I was in the back of the class. I didn’t participate a lot in the day to day of answering questions and those sort of things. But I went about my business of doing my classwork and whatnot. And so what I saw Simon was my mom organized other parents and they had actually discovered a pattern in which black boys were being identified by this particular teacher and categorized as being unable to read, being problematic in the classroom in terms of behavior, things of that nature.

Rodney Foxworth:
And so witnessing my mother and other parents, black parents, mostly mothers as well organized in such a fashion. I witnessed both the impact of anti-black racism in my formative years and continuing to be, but also witness what happens when communities organize and actually assert their own authority and power. And so Simon that’s really, for me fundamentally where that story begins for me on my journey of really witnessing and experiencing all the injustices, the systemic injustices and how they actually show up in our personal lives, but also seeing how people have power to assert as well. And the tremendous capacity for people to do extraordinary things. And so that’s really how my journey began Simon.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I think what you’re sharing is so important that these formative experiences that really shape our lives and careers and our sense of self and really kind of stay with us through our lifetimes, they’re deeply, deeply personal. There’s nothing about this what’s an abstract idea or some sort of altruistic sort of idea out there that people can aspire to because it’s admirable. This is deeply personal in people’s lives and you mentioned something which want to go back to, which is it’s almost people are using a lot of buzzwords these days, especially on the back of black lives matter and so on. And eventually those words get hijacked or use so much in some ways they lose their meaning. And it’s kind of just giving a nod to these issues yet at the same time, they’re deeply personal, as you said.

Simon Mainwaring:
So when you’re at the helm of an organization like Common Future, how do you navigate that? How do you take advantage of the heightened awareness for the need for change at the same time that people are kind of using it as a buzzword and almost sort of just ticking the box without really addressing it substantively?

Rodney Foxworth:
It’s one of the things we can not make the mistake of doing is effectively seeing heightened awareness as equating to heightened desire to make change in action. And I will be honest with you, I am a realist, I have… Obviously to do the type of work that you, that I do that we do, you have to have optimism. However, what I would say Simon is that my optimism really is placed much more on the communities and individuals, like when I witnessed with my mother and the other parents organizing. Because I see such tremendous capacity from those who have been most impacted by all of these injustices. So I have a lot of optimism there. I would admit that over the past year or so in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and so many countless individuals that have faced unjust murder at the hands of the state. And a range of other things, obviously with COVID and how that has the impacts of COVID the pandemic really disproportionately impact those who are low wealth, people of color, et cetera.

Rodney Foxworth:
So there’s heightened awareness Simon and at the same time, I have witnessed and observed and experienced almost sort of a numbness to it by those who have had their awareness heightened. Now that might sound cynical. So, but that is something that I’ve experienced that said to your question, Simon, one of the ways that we navigate that is my organization by design and purposely has purposefully has been structured in a, which we actually ensure that we have majority people of color with lived experiences inside of the organization making decisions. Right? And so for us, what that looks like is making sure that both the organization and the leadership of an organization is made up of people, especially women of color, I believe we’re abouts 75, 80% women of color in the same in terms of the leadership of the organization. And again, that’s by design that’s intentional because when you look at our sector, Simon, decision-makers oftentimes don’t look like the individuals that make up the organization that is Common Future. And so by having those sets of experiences, it really helps us navigate so much of these terrains.

Simon Mainwaring:
I think that’s really important because you need to kind of lean into those who’ve had that experience to make it, to legitimize the efforts you’re making, that they can speak with authority. But what you said about your own personal experience, watching your mum when you were young and seeing the change that she drove when she organized the other mothers, it’s that direct personal experience and participation that makes all the difference. And to your point about the last year and a half, I’m optimistic too, because I think it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. I think if we give into pessimism, then we’re damned, what are we going to do? We’re just going to spiral downhill and we’re not going to be surprised by what we get. So it’s a conscious choice to be optimistic.

Simon Mainwaring:
But also above and beyond that, if you look at all the ways that people are self-organized over the last year, whether it’s to rally around COVID to rally around their company, to rally around their community. And then obviously yes, with the black lives matter movement, the global response, there were people took to the streets and then millions in cities around the world. It does give you at least optimism or confidence in the power of the every person to really self-organize and raise awareness of an issue and drive change. And so you had that experience when you were young and help my listeners understand tell us what Common Future does. It’s a nonprofit, but it takes those principles of collaboration and participation, and really then focuses their energies on those underserved communities. Correct?

Rodney Foxworth:
That’s absolutely correct. And one of the things I like to say Simon is that while we are a nonprofit in structure and form, and that’s really critically important, I really like to think of us as a mission driven organization. Right. And that’s important because I think oftentimes organizations, particularly those in the nonprofit sector might not borrow from a multitude of disciplines and industries to really understand different approaches or lean into different approaches for success. Right? And so for your listeners, Common Future does a number of things, Simon. And a few of the things that we do that I think are particularly pertinent for this conversation, because one, we believe that those who are closest to these problems and challenges are those closest and most proximate to the solutions.

Rodney Foxworth:
And so one of the things that we do want, we provide financial capital in the form of grants and actually what we refer to as restorative investment, into an extraordinary network of organizations working to build power and community wealth in the communities in which they live in. Right. And so what does that look like? We provide general operating support to those organizations and really Simon, we look at it as catalytic capital or innovation capital. Where these organizations and oftentimes individuals as well, extraordinary social entrepreneurs in these communities can have a set of resources, financial resources, where they can innovate where they can test, they can experiment. And wow, over the past year plus obviously with COVID shifting so much of the world that we live in having that type of capital is really important.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I know the type of financing you provide is unique because often it’s hard to get a loan if you don’t have a strong credit history or you don’t have collateral to show for it. So I guess you provide loans on a strength of character more.

Rodney Foxworth:
That’s right. And so really quickly on that Simon, one of the exciting things that we’re about to launch in the next few weeks is something that we’ve devised internally at Common Future. We refer to it as the character based lending pilot, and it’s exactly the name we’re basing it on character. And what we’ve done, Simon is Common Future has taken money off of our own balance sheet, set it aside for this pool of capital will then raise co-investment from high net worth individuals, foundations, et cetera, in which they’re providing investment capital at 0% to Common Future, right. So that we can lend it out at a reasonable rate that is supportive of businesses.

Simon Mainwaring:
Then that’s even better than today’s rates. That’s some pretty good rates there Rodney, I’m just going to say it.

Rodney Foxworth:
That’s a pretty good rate right?

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah.

Rodney Foxworth:
And the other thing that’s really important about this Simon is that we’re working with three institutions in the Common Future network all of which are either black or indigenous led and staffed and governed. And they’re the ones that are actually determining the businesses and entrepreneurs that will get these loans. And so they are organizations that are working hand in hand every single day with these businesses and entrepreneurs. And so, again, going to that point of trust, we said, Common Future doesn’t have the same level of relationships with these entrepreneurs and small businesses in these communities. So we need to seed power and control to the organizations that do. And so that is another thing, another example of the type of thing that we do at Common Future.

Simon Mainwaring:
I’ve got to imagine this has got to mean so much for those aspiring entrepreneurs in communities that are struggling, where they don’t have a lot of opportunities. I mean, what difference all the stories you must have seen. What difference does it make to people’s lives when they finally get a loan so they can get a leg up and stop their business?

Rodney Foxworth:
I can tell you Simon, I consider myself still an entrepreneur, even though I’m running an institution, a non-profit institution at this point, but I have started a few different entrepreneurial ventures myself. And I again, going back to personal experience I don’t have family wealth, right. It’s likely that I will have to provide financial support to my parents and my family as they age and get older. And as I was launching these different entrepreneur endeavors, again, I didn’t have friends and family, that I can raise capital from. I didn’t have assets that I could bring to the table to get a loan, or what have you. And so I deeply understand the vulnerability, the lack of comfort and safety when you’re attempting to do these things right.

Rodney Foxworth:
And so I think for entrepreneurs, particularly entrepreneurs of color, especially women of color entrepreneurs, when you’re able to have access to what many in our network I’m going to cite my dear friend, [Jessica Norwood 00:16:34] of the runway project, “Believe in you capital.” She coined this term believe in you capital, it’s money when you’re an entrepreneur, you receive capital that is low stress. You didn’t have to go through all these hurdles that someone, an institutional or an individual said to you, we believe in you.

Simon Mainwaring:
I mean, that’s so powerful, just as a message in its own right. I want to ask a cynic’s question here. I want to ask an unkind, arguably insensitive question only because it’s part of the mix that these sorts of issues provoke.

Rodney Foxworth:
Absolutely.

Simon Mainwaring:
At the heart, these underserved communities are suffering racism and social injustice that is unconscionable and is just hurt and damaged so many people’s lives. But from a purely business lens, what is the value proposition of investing in underserved communities, communities of color, not only for those communities, but cities, the country more broadly why is it so compelling to do?

Rodney Foxworth:
Simon, thanks for asking the question. And it’s not an insensitive question because I think it’s a question that so many individuals and institutions ask themselves. And so I would argue that not just myself, but there’ve been many studies Simon on this question in which the conclusions are such that effectively we are… In the United States, we’re projected to become a majority people of color country within the next two to three decades. Now imagine living in an economy, living in the United States in which we’ve said we’re only going to invest into say 10% of perspective, innovators, job creators, community stabilizers that has adverse impacts upon all of us. And there’s been so many research studies Simon that indicate that by under investing into entrepreneurs, small businesses, communities of color, we’re actually our collective economy is losing money. That we’re leaving money on the table, billions trillions of dollars on the table because of our unwillingness to allocate investment into these communities.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I think even above, above and beyond that and it may provoke some people for me to say this, but in a lot of ways, the talent pool that you’ve had to compete with has been limited by keeping people of color and even women out of that competitive set that have all the opportunities to take advantage of capital and entrepreneurship and innovation. But if you really widen that pool, then more people can compete, you can move faster, you can unlock more innovations, you can establish build scale markets. There’s so much upside for a more expansive approach to this above and beyond just the human dignity that’s involved.

Rodney Foxworth:
That’s right. There’s a great phrase that people oftentimes say that I absolutely believe in because I experienced it in my own life. Talent is distributed equally, opportunity is not right. I think about this is where, again, going back to the personal experiences. Simon, oftentimes engage with people that are sort of blown away by my story and say, “Rodney’s extraordinary is exceptional,” et cetera. And to be honest, Simon, I looked back into my life and I acknowledge that I have some gifts that I have a level of intelligence, some talents and those sort of things. But when I look back at it, attending Baltimore City public schools, there were so many people in my age cohort, my peer group that just didn’t have opportunities presented to them, but they had extraordinary talent. They had exceptional ability.

Simon Mainwaring:
And that potential is not only robbed of them, it’s robbed of everybody. I know you had a personal experiences of this with your grandfather when he came back from serving the Korean war. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because again, I think it’s such a this doesn’t become real until it’s personal and yet the country is just full of people for whom this is a daily experience. So tell us a little bit about that?

Rodney Foxworth:
I think it’s one of those stories that again, Simon, I’ve only become more comfortable sharing recently because we don’t… It’s really hard for people, I think, to share these stories, but also grappled with its meaning. Because oftentimes again, specifically in the United States, there are a lot of individuals and institutions companies that’ll say, “Well, racism that was like 400 years ago, we’ve repented, we’re good now.”

Simon Mainwaring:
We’re talking about it now. It’s making headlines.

Rodney Foxworth:
That’s right. We’re discussing it. And yet, if you don’t understand the history of some uncertain things. So again, so my grandfather was a vet and when he returned as a veteran, he was a purple heart. He was not afforded the full GI benefits that should have been afforded to him simply because he was a black man. Now for your listeners, some of which might have this experience themselves also might have the flip side of the experience. The middle-class in the United States, so much of it came from an investment from the US government, particularly from GI benefits and things that made it easier, more affordable to purchase homes, to go to college for free, extraordinary levels of investment. And yet what we know and our history and what I’ve experienced personally, is that disproportionately African-Americans were denied those opportunities that their fellow white colleagues in the military were afforded.

Rodney Foxworth:
Now, mind you, my grandfather passed away four years ago at this point and he was 84 years old. So we’re talking about history, we’re talking about something that’s very recent right Simon. It’s not as though this was so long ago, what are the repercussions of that? Right. He had to do so much more to have ownership of a home and he didn’t have an opportunity to do college and all those sorts of things. And then there has generational impact. And on the flip side of it, there are households that were able to benefit from investments from the government creating and building assets for generations to come. And again, I think that is so remarkable, I’ll leave you with this one, this exact point, Simon.

Rodney Foxworth:
Just the other day, it would have been the birthday of Emmett Till, July 25th. And what’s remarkable was that Emmett Till would have been 80 years old. And for those who are listening Emmett Till was a young boy, he was, I believe, 14 years old, that was unjustly and savagely murdered during a time in which that could happen if you were a black man, black boy in this instance would just happen consistently having a conversation with a white woman. And there were all these false accusations of things that black boys were doing and such. And I just, I raised this for the listeners because oftentimes we want to put things so far in the past Simon, but Emmett Till would have been 80 years old.

Simon Mainwaring:
I mean, that’s an our lives today. And I want to ask you on a personal level, your grandfather who passed so recently, did he ever remark to you that progress has been made or was it in his opinion, did he feel like we’re still much where we were, where he was struggled after he came back from serving? Did he see a lot of progress?

Rodney Foxworth:
It’s just a great question. And I actually I have a photo of my grandfather in his military attire right in front of me. And my grandfather was such an instrumental force in my life, helped me really be what I would say, what he was striving for me to have a liberated mind, to think for myself to question, to be able to draw conclusions on my own. And what I would say is that my grandfather certainly acknowledged levels of progress, but he acknowledged them to be insufficient. Because what my grandfather would always point out to me, was that he was particularly interested and passionate about the collective uplift of black people specifically. And he had a large heart, so it wasn’t just black people, but that was really for him. And what he would say, I think channeling him is that the system is largely the same and we’ve made space for more people to participate in an unjust system, including black people.

Rodney Foxworth:
And so for him, I think having a different system entirely was the goal. And I think what’s interesting too, in this conversation is that they’re arranging perspectives, particularly for folks of different generations. And I believe that I personally believe that there’s been progress, right. Because again, I just referenced Emmett Till. And at the same time when I referenced that we’d like to believe that something like that wouldn’t happen today in 2021. And yet we do have so many instances of black men and women being unjustly and savagely murdered by the police, for example. And so I think these things are kind of recurring, but I do believe that there’s been some progress Simon. I do think within the lens of what my grandfather would say is that the system is still in the same system.

Simon Mainwaring:
The work that you’re doing is so important from just a justice and equity point of view. But also as we said, from a growth and innovation and community development point of view, and I know that you’ve just had the largest gift to your organization from [MacKenzie 00:27:52] Scott, which so firstly, congratulations. That is awesome.

Rodney Foxworth:
Thank you. Thank you.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I wonder as you look to the future Rodney, what are your hopes in terms of what you can do with that capital? If you can just sort of cast your eye out to the future and the growth of the organization and the communities that can serve, what’s your strategy looking forward?

Rodney Foxworth:
I really appreciate that question, Simon. And I think this goes earlier to my comment about, yes, we’re a not for profit. We’re a 501 C3. However, we like to think very differently. One to be able to model different types of economic structures that really mirror the types of things that we fund and investment in support of. And so one of the things that we’re thinking a lot about Simon, and we’re still in the early stages of really figuring this all out, but we want to actually be able to structure different vehicles for us as an institution to drive our work. So let me get more specific.

Rodney Foxworth:
We, as an organization, we operate as a pretty traditional 501 C3. We raise money from philanthropy. We have an earned income portfolio, but it’s quite modest Simon. We raise capital from philanthropic sources. We invested into institutions and network, et cetera. We create a lot of value. However, I want us as an institution to be less reliant on philanthropic resources. And it’s not because I simply want to do that in a vacuum. It’s because we want to be an institution that is already predominantly people of color or predominantly women of color. And I want to be able to model out what it means for an organization made up of individuals such that, that work at Common Future to really own, and co-create within the economy that we want to see move forward.

Rodney Foxworth:
So for example, Simon, what might it look like for a Common Future to be able to incubate a new type of investment advisory that is solely focused on, has a mandate to move capital in ways that authentically develop economic prosperity in power in communities of color? What might it look like for Common Future to explore opportunities and FinTech that really center the needs of the types of communities that are represented by the Common Future network? Right? Those are the types of things that we’re thinking about Simon that go beyond the traditional 501 C3 dynamic. And that’s what we look forward to really endeavoring into being catalytic investors, being co-owners ourselves, being in incubators of these different types of structures that can really create economic prosperity and wealth in communities that have been excluded and extracted from.

Simon Mainwaring:
Your word catalytic is so important there, once you get the success stories off the ground, they build momentum and they start to create their own market forces that then allow them to grow even further. It’s just getting it off the ground and making sure you get that kind of wind behind your back, and then increasingly everyone can benefit including those communities that have been underserved. And I know COVID has been so hard on the country and everyone around the world, but disproportionately on communities of color and so it’s a little bit of the last 18 months has just been a little bit sort of extraordinary in that sense. But as you look to the future, if there were people of wealth or high net worth individuals that wanted to support Common Future, or if there were sort of aspiring entrepreneurs and disadvantages communities that wanted to sort of connect with Common Future to take advantage of what you’re talking about, where should they go? What should they do?

Rodney Foxworth:
The first thing I can do is go to our website, which is commonfuture.co. You actually get to see a number of initiatives that we’re working on as an organization. And there are a number of ways of supporting. One, we create a lot of content that can be shared. And I think that’s really important Simon, because that helps to reframe people’s thinking in their mind, their mindset. So that’s something that can happen. If you’re interested in partnering with us to be able to provide investment or grant capital into some of these institutions that we work with, we have such an extraordinary pipeline of opportunity to support institutions and individuals across the country. Those are two fundamental things that people can look to do.

Rodney Foxworth:
One thing I wanted to add to your point about COVID Simon, and this is fundamental to the way that kind of future operates and I think this is how people need to operate and think moving forward. If COVID has taught us anything, it has taught us that we can not predict the future. Right, Simon I’m seeing right now, the CDC being criticized, some can argue rightfully or not being criticized for flip-flopping on their approach to how to handle the pandemic. As a leader Simon, what I actually see is when you get new insights and data, you shift, you change, you adapt to what is now understood. Now that we understand that the Delta variant, for example, is spreading in the ways that it has been, all that has to shift.

Rodney Foxworth:
And I bring this up Simon because I’ve actually been struck by how despite living through COVID, we’ve all been living through this for 18 months plus at this point, right? Despite that people still aren’t really looking for certainty. And I would offer to people that we have to get comfortable with learning and experimentation, and being comfortable with pivoting when necessary, because we get new information. And that’s the fundamental thing about Common Future and I mentioned this earlier in our conversation, providing catalytic capital that allows institutions and leaders and now network to experiment to learn and innovate. Because they can not say a year from the day X, Y, and Z will happen, but they can learn from what they’re doing. And I think that’s critically important.

Simon Mainwaring:
I think that’s so true. And I’ll confess that one of the things I shared with my team even just a week ago, was as we looked for that certainty, I saw there’s this saying out there, which is, “Life is not this sink or swim proposition. You’ve got to learn to ride the waves.” And I think the sense of being destabilized and off-kilter that we’re all feeling, and we don’t necessarily enjoy. We’ve got to understand that that’s going to be consistent moving forward. And I want to say, Rodney, firstly, enormous respect for our Common Future is doing, it’s collaborative approach to truly inclusive work in underserved communities is so important. And I’m just really excited that you’ve got this support behind you now to scale your work as you move forward so that you can really transform even more lives. So thank you so much for your time today and for all the insights you’ve shared.

Rodney Foxworth:
Simon, thanks for including me in the conversation, it’s been a great discussion and I really appreciate what you all are doing.

Simon Mainwaring:
Thanks, Rodney.

Simon Mainwaring:
Thanks for joining us for the final episode of Lead With We season two, our show is produced by Goal 17 Media, and you can always find more information about our guests in the show notes of each episode. Make sure you subscribe to Lead With We on Apple, Google, or Spotify, and do share it with your friends and colleagues. You can also watch our episodes on YouTube at We First TV. We’ll be back with new episodes this fall and in the meantime, I’ll be busy putting the finishing touches on my upcoming book, Lead With We, which is now available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Google books. See you again soon and until then, let’s all Lead With We. (Silence).