Center for Wealth Equity

Overview

Turning Evidence Into Better Capital Decisions

CWE bridges research, field experience, and capital strategy. We help cities, funders, financial institutions, and civic partners answer practical questions:

• Where is capital flowing, and where is it blocked?
• What decision rules, incentives, or structures shape those patterns?
• What strategies are ready to replicate or adapt?
• How can public, private, and philanthropic capital be better coordinated?
• What would help capital reach businesses, households, and communities that have historically been overlooked?

CWE does this by combining Living Cities’ place-based experience, member insights, investment activity, external research, and capital market signals. The result is a set of decision-support products that help leaders act with greater clarity.

These products may include capital diagnostics, strategy briefs, frameworks, dashboards, implementation tools, and field-facing analysis.

For Cities

CWE helps cities and local partners understand the capital systems shaping economic outcomes.

Cities can use CWE to:

• identify where capital is not reaching local businesses, households, or neighborhoods;
• assess whether local conditions are ready to absorb investment;
• compare strategies across similar cities or contexts;
• strengthen coordination among public, private, philanthropic, and community partners.

CWE supports decision-makers in moving from fragmented insight to coordinated action.

For Institutions

CWE helps philanthropic institutions, financial institutions, and civic partners convert knowledge into stronger capital strategies.
Institutions can use CWE to:

• compare insights across cities, sectors, and member priorities;
• understand where existing rules or products may limit access;
• surface opportunities for co-investment or aligned action;
• translate local proof into strategies that can inform broader practice

By contributing to CWE’s work, institutions help build a shared evidence base for more effective capital deployment while extending the reach and impact of their own learning

How CWE Works

CWE uses a practical evidence-to-action method:

1. Identify the capital question.
   We start with the decision leaders need to make: where to invest, what to replicate, how to structure capital, or what barrier is preventing capital from reaching communities, businesses, or households.
2. Diagnose the capital system.
   We analyze how capital currently flows through a place, sector, or strategy, identifying where fragmentation, bottlenecks, policy barriers, or misaligned incentives limit investment.
3. Synthesize the evidence.
   We draw from Living Cities’ work, member insights, investment experience, external research, and market signals to identify what is known, what is transferable, and what conditions matter.
4. Translate into decision tools and strategies.
   We develop practical tools, frameworks, briefs, and strategies that help leaders change how capital is structured, coordinated, and deployed.

Leadership

Dr. Ahmed Whitt serves as Director of the Center for Wealth Equity at Living Cities.

As an applied social scientist, nonprofit leader, and entrepreneur, Dr. Whitt brings experience across academia, social enterprise, strategic consulting, and capital systems analysis. His work focuses on how institutions make decisions that shape access to wealth-building opportunity, particularly for communities that have been historically excluded from capital.

At CWE, Dr. Whitt leads efforts to translate research, data, member knowledge, and field experience into practical strategies that improve how capital decisions are made.

To explore opportunities for collaboration, contact Ahmed Whitt at awhitt@livingcities.org