Prosper Birmingham President J.W. Carpenter Shares Vision for Economic Inclusion

This week the Rotary Club of Birmingham welcomed J.W. Carpenter, President of Prosper Birmingham. Carpenter shared the new organization's mission to create a more vibrant and racially inclusive economy in partnership with community, civic and business leaders in response to a Brookings Institution economic situation assessment detailing the area's challenges and opportunities. Carpenter explained that Prosper fills the role of civic venture capital, connecting, aligning, investing and growing our county's economy equitably.

Goals include creating 75,000 jobs, cutting the racial income gap by at least 50%, and eliminating the racial employment gap by 2036 through key programs that include Birmingham Promise, black-owned business acceleration, a health tech industry cluster and business advisory services. The initiative, which focuses on Jefferson County, aims to bring everyone to the table.

“You can’t have been around Birmingham the last ten years and not seen a lot of growth—there is so much good stuff happening in every sector,” said Carpenter. “As they delved into the numbers, what they found was that we aren’t growing nearly as rapidly as surrounding regions. The growth that we do have is not reaching all elements. The black community is not growing, women are not growing even as fast as the region is.

“It’s not just a moral error, but we are missing opportunity after opportunity to connect people to living wage jobs, to grow jobs, to grow companies with diverse founders. The idea of Prosper was to start off as a lean organization that’s going to drive this commitment to inclusive economic growth so we can create more quality jobs, we can catalyze businesses, we can make sure our workforce is aligned.”