Invitation to Submit Proposals for Initiative to be Considered at the Heirs’ Property Prevention and Funders’ Forum
Heirs’ property occurs when a property owner dies intestate or with a will that leaves property to multiple beneficiaries, resulting in a fractured or entangled title. Left unresolved, this becomes a barrier to the ability to sell, collateralize, improve, or otherwise transfer the property. Because heirs’ property is disproportionately found in racial and ethnic minority, low-wealth, rural, and distressed urban communities, it is a critical barrier to minority homeownership and the creation of generational wealth and racial equity. As a significant contributor to blight and unrealized equity in poor neighborhoods throughout the country, the scale and pervasiveness of this challenge is shocking. For example, in the state of Georgia, $34 billion worth of tax appraised property is probable heirs’ property according to a 2017 USDA study. In 1980, the Emergency Land Fund estimated that 41 percent (3.8 million acres) of all Black-owned land in the Black Belt region was heirs’ property.
On December 2, 2021 in Atlanta, GA, the Funders’ Forum will seek to bring together potential funders with dozens of nonprofit and other organizations from 22 states and the District of Columbia. The intended outcome of this forum is to establish a capital, human, and organizational support basis for heirs’ property resolution and prevention pilot initiatives in the following areas: education and awareness; pro-bono legal services; academic research; local government innovation; and developer/contractor driven affordable housing initiatives. Potential funders, including philanthropic and other grant and resource providers, law firms, financial institutions, and builder and realtor trade groups, will have the opportunity to hear from nonprofits and other organizations as they pitch scaled pilot solutions to this group in an in-person and virtual environment. The forum has been designed to allow funders and organizations with initiatives in their market to connect and determine their mutual interest in funding a proposed solution.
The Department of Energy and Environment is still accepting applications for its no-cost benchmarking data verification initiative! If you have a building over 50,000 square feet that is currently covered by the District’s benchmarking law, then you are eligible for free data verification. Data verification is a new benchmarking requirement established in the 
Calling all DC Property Owners & Managers! Under the 
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is intended to offer businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic economic assistance with completely forgivable principal. But to get that full loan forgiveness, recipients must navigate a process with complex rules and calculations, and any forgiveness application errors, documentation missteps, and other lapses mean exposure: A risk of leaving some PPP loan forgiveness on the table.
Save the date for September 18, 2020 for the Race, Equity & the Future of Greater Washington Regional Summit at Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC), where over 800 regional leaders from Greater Washington—D.C., Northern Virginia, and Suburban Maryland—will convene to examine existing disparities and co-create a new path toward a racially just and equitable region. While Greater Washington is one of the most socially, culturally, and economically vibrant regions in the country, it is also impacted by disparities in every aspect of life— housing, employment, education, justice, wealth and health; and through aligned and measurable action, cross-sector leaders can close the gaps.
