Promoting Racial Equity through For-profit Commercial Real Estate: The Ford Foundation, Progress Plaza, and the Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust, 1967-1974

Abstract

This report describes a Ford Foundation project that sought to fund social and economic programs with the aim of "promot[ing] equality of opportunity for disadvantaged Blacks: grants made to the Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust (ZNPCT) and later Zion Investment Associates (ZIA) to support construction and financial sustenance of Progress Plaza, a shopping center housing Black-owned businesses in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."  I examine the evolution of ZNPCT from a religious-based charity to a non-profit trust to a profit-making entity focused on spurring employment and economic development opportunities for Black residents of a North Philadelphia neighborhood between 1967 and 1974.  An examination of how Ford assessed Zion projects and investments as they transitioned to profitable goals reveals how the marriage of financial and social goals was challenging, with the latter ultimately resting on the viability of the former.  This structure remains in contemporary social enterprises, impact investments, and program-related investments