Decades of segregation, structural racism, and disinvestment have made it difficult for Black and Latine families with low incomes to successfully build wealth in Fresno, California. Even though agencies and nonprofits have programs—such as CalFresh food assistance and CalWORKs cash assistance—to assist those who are struggling, these stabilization efforts don’t create wealth. Social service agencies and nonprofits also tend to operate these programs independently and with little overlap or coordination, and many programs have rules and eligibility criteria that limit their use.

With these challenges in mind, a steering committee of nonprofit, community, and institutional leaders in Fresno designed a comprehensive model—the Prosperity Coaching Network and Pilot—in 2022 to deliver a more integrated suite of local agency and nonprofit resources across the stages of wealth creation, from stabilizing finances to creating wealth-building opportunities such as entrepreneurship and homeownership.

As part of the broader Fresno DRIVE (Developing the Region’s Inclusive and Vibrant Economy) Initiative, the Prosperity Coaching Network and Pilot serves as a promising model to address long-standing challenges to economic mobility in Fresno and other communities across the US.

Setting a North Star goal for wealth creation

At the start of the pilot’s design process, the steering committee noted a critical distinction between financial stabilization and wealth creation. The steering committee determined that its North Star shouldn’t prioritize financial stabilization but rather building wealth for Black and Latine neighborhoods in Fresno County. Steering committee members were particularly concerned about the often precarious transitions between financial stabilization and wealth-creation programs, especially because the people they serve often experience a benefits cliff while navigating from relying on government- or program-based supports to building wealth through more service-oriented programs.

In response, the Urban Institute, as part of our work with the Shared Prosperity Partnership, helped the group develop an evidence-based logic model outlining core prosperity coaching pillars to reflect the spectrum of services a person might use as they transition from financial stabilization to the different phases of wealth creation. The steering committee decided the pilot should focus its attention on developing “on-ramps” that connect existing stabilization programs to two tiers of wealth-creation programs.

Though the logic model is a useful framework for understanding how pillars of the pilot work together, wealth creation is complex, and people may jump from service to service depending on their needs, goals, and life circumstances. But by outlining a comprehensive picture of how services could work together to help Black and Latine people build wealth, the steering committee believed the logic model could serve as a platform to connect and coordinate service providers to meet people’s diverse needs as they pursue their wealth-creation journeys.

Nesting the pilot within a Prosperity Coaching Network

To test this model in the coming year, the steering committee designed a pilot that will embed Prosperity Coaches in partner organizations and use a system of closed loop referrals—similar to those in the medical field—between service providers to connect and guide participants through a wide range of supports, resources, and information. Prosperity Coaches will be community members who help participants navigate programs and customize services and interventions to meet their specific needs, particularly as they transition across programs and from financial stabilization to wealth creation.

The Prosperity Coaching Network will oversee the pilot, make refinements to its design, and capture lessons to secure future funding. Given their leadership with the DRIVE Wealth Creation Initiative, the Central Valley Community Foundation and United Way of Fresno and Madera Counties will serve as the network’s initial hosts.

They plan to convene regular Prosperity Coaching Roundtables with Prosperity Coaches and service providers to discuss their participants’ needs and strategies to address them collectively. The network will also build on California’s 211 Information Services to develop a shared database and referral system that encompasses all strategies outlined in the logic model and creates a consistent intake and referral system across partner organizations.

As the network grows to include more providers, it will coordinate a range of financial services and resources to meet the diverse needs of residents across the wealth-creation spectrum.

Lessons for other cities

Over the next 12 to 18 months, the Prosperity Coaching Pilot and Network will generate refinements and create a comprehensive model for coordinating services and resources. Insights from the pilot and launch of the Prosperity Coaching Network will also provide the broader DRIVE Initiative with important lessons that could catalyze system and policy changes around the delivery of stabilization and wealth-creation programming.

Below are lessons for other communities interested in developing a holistic model to advance inclusive growth and equitable development:

• Identify a North Star and build a logic model that shows how different sectors can advance that goal.
• Capitalize on neighborhood-based organizations and assets when identifying which strategies could help build toward that north star.
• Recognize the pivotal role backbone organizations can play as conveners and facilitators of cross-sector, systems-wide reforms.
• Create and centralize a platform for sharing participant intake and progress information as the foundation for a closed-loop referral system that streamlines service delivery across providers and meets people’s needs at different stages of wealth creation.
• Once service providers are connected, evaluate how easily participants are moving across programs to assess the services’ efficacy, the resources provided, and these systems’ overall health.

These lessons can help communities and programs meet residents’ needs across the wealth creation spectrum and address wealth inequities among Black and Latine families.