Centuries of policies that privileged white economic mobility while excluding or actively exploiting communities of color have created a racial wealth chasm in the US. Today, the average white household in the US holds six times the wealth of a Black household, five times the wealth of a Latino household, and more than 10 times the wealth of a Native American household. The persistent divide, compounded over time, threatens to lock generations of people of color into a permanent underclass. 

But it doesn’t have to stay that way. 

For every driver of the racial wealth gap, there are ways for patient capital to unlock lost potential. 

“Capital has done a significant amount of harm to communities of color,” says Santhosh Ramdoss of Gary Community Ventures. “To undo that, we need the same capital to become a restorative tool.”

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The authors thank Rebeca Cavalcanti, a manager in the Chicago office of Bain & Company, and Zach Slobig, an editorial director based in Bridgespan's San Francisco office.