Municipal Bond Markets & Racial Equity Technical Assistance Cohort Announcement
The Public Finance Initiative (PFI) is pleased to announce the issuers selected for the Municipal Bond Markets and Racial Equity Framework Technical Assistance & Grant Program - a bold effort to create a new framework that centers racial equity in municipal bond funded projects and capital investments, developed and launched in partnership with the PFM Group Consulting LLC (PFM GC), PFM Financial Advisors (PFM FA, collectively with PFM GC, PFM), and the Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE). The program brings together an initial cohort of government leaders from across the country to receive free technical assistance– a first-of-its-kind opportunity for municipalities, state authorities, and other bond issuers and borrowers who want to enhance how they center racial equity in a bond issuances or their capital projects:
- The City of Chicago, Illinois
- The City of Dallas, Texas
- The City of Bloomington, Minnesota
- The City of St. Paul & Port Authority of St. Paul, Minnesota
- King County, Washington
- The City of Atlanta, Georgia
- The Nevada Municipal Bond Bank
- The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
In addition to achieving the issuer's technical assistance goal, the program also prioritizes education, capacity building, and will provide each issuer with ample documentation on methodology, findings, and recommendations to support them. In addition, GARE, in partnership with the firm RomoGIS, is providing a data workshop for program participants to help them measure and assess indicators of social equity in their jurisdictions using the Esri Social Equity Analysis Tool.
Issuers in the program will be contributing to an extremely relevant and impactful movement within the public finance sphere and expect to share promising emerging practices in the field of racial equity with other municipal market participants, at the conclusion of the program. To learn more, join our mailing list or contact us at programs@publicfinanceinitiative.com.
The Municipal Bond Markets & Racial Equity Program is funded with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. However, the views expressed in this program are those of the authors and program teams.