Pittsburgh Business Times | March 29, 2021 | Tim Schooley | Read the full story
From left to right: Matt Madia, Director of Real Estate Services, Neighborhood Allies; Presley Gillespie, president, Neighborhood Allies; Morton Stanfield Jr., senior vice president for community development, Dollar Bank; and Frank Buonomo, vice president for public affairs, Dollar Bank.
Downtown-based community development nonprofit Neighborhood Allies is working to build upon a venture to help jumpstart development in Pittsburgh’s minority neighborhoods and one of the city’s biggest banks is supporting it.
Neighborhood Allies launched what it is calling the Centralized Real Estate Accelerator last year to help fund and provide technical expertise to nonprofit and commercial developers to help to spur greater community ownership in Black and minority neighborhoods.
To get the accelerator up and running, Neighborhood Allies is working with a $200,000 award from Dollar Bank
According to an announcement by Neighborhood Allies, the funding from Dollar Bank will be dedicated to supporting the accelerator’s goal of wealth building through real estate for entrepreneurs of color by helping minority communities understand their business districts, engaging them on the ups and downs about real estate ownership, and working to build a pipeline of projects in which to invest.
Matt Madia, director of real estate services for Neighborhood Allies, said, “investments like this from Dollar Bank allow us to build confidence and capacity in community-based developers, increasing capital absorption in low-income neighborhoods.”
Dollar Bank president and CEO, Jim McQuade, said of the award to Neighborhood Allies: “By pledging our support to the Neighborhood Allies Real Estate Accelerator program, we will work together to advance racial equity in real estate by collaborating with early stage developers of color, helping them obtain assets in their communities to help grow generational wealth. At Dollar Bank, we believe that together with our community partners, we can collectively bring positive and systemic change in the neighborhoods we serve.”
