1803 Fund Will Invest $8 million in 11 Community Partners to Strengthen Black Portland

PORTLAND, Ore. –The 1803 Fund has announced it will invest $8 million in 11 community-based partners aimed at strengthening Black Portland.

Founded in 2020, the investment fund aims to grow shared prosperity, through a mix of financial investments and investments in community-based organizations. Rukaiyah Adams, CEO of 1803 Fund, wrote the fund’s original business concept after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.

“These grants make real a vision that started in 2020,”  she said. “I remember thinking that I wanted to use the skills I had developed over 20 years as a professional to do something transformative,” she added.

That commitment to transformation has now materialized as millions of dollars invested in her community.

Kenneth Berry is the Board President of Albina Music Trust (AMT), one of the new 1803 Fund partners. AMT documents the legacy of Albina’s music community through archival media preservation, events, a record label and other programs that aim to amplify the soul of Portland.

“What we’re doing is basically preserving tradition, history, and life,” Berry said. “A lot of people are passing on who have contributed to Albina and we’re trying to document as much as we can.”

Calvin Walker–AMT’s Board Chair said the grant from 1803 Fund will allow AMT to do more of that work. He’s especially encouraged by the strong relationship that has already been built between Albina Music Trust and 1803 Fund.

“It feels more like a family than a funder,” Walker said. “Just the method of how (1803 Fund] is doing the work–it’s heartwarming, truthfully. And with such dignity, and promise.”

Dana Shephard—the Executive Director of Portland Housing Center (PHC), another community partner—feels similarly connected to the team and mission at 1803 Fund. PHC helps make homeownership a reality for folks through home buyer education, one-on-one mentorship, down payment assistance and more.

“Making sure that people have access to homeownership in the heart of Northeast Portland is what is critical and important to me,” she says.

“I am thinking about the folks that have lost properties in this particular neighborhood... and the wealth that could have been created for our family.”

Shephard says that she’s particularly interested in supporting women and mothers in her work–that’s part of why she’s excited to partner with 1803 Fund. 

“As a Portlander–as someone who cares very deeply about the community,” she continues. “There’s no way that I can ever remove myself from what 1803 is doing.”

For Rukaiyah Adams, it’s essential that the rest of 1803 Fund’s “For the Future” partners feel the same. 

“For so long, important work has been done on a shoestring by brilliant people,” says Adams. “We’re always asking outsiders to help us. But in this case, we’re able to help each other.”

Adams is a fourth-generation Portlander; some of these organizations have been in her life since she was a child. As she considers the importance of this announcement, she weighs her position leading one of the largest Black investment funds in the world. 

“As a woman, it’s one thing to be perceived as powerful–it’s a whole other thing to use that power,” she says. “For a Black woman, to use it for your own community is so subversive it’s on the edge of imagination.”

Ultimately, For the Future is an early step toward 1803 Fund’s larger aim: using capital to grow wealthy, powerful Black life.

“It’s important that the first conversations about the future of capitalism happen in our own community,” says Adams. “Capital should serve the people.”