A Conversation with Kwame Owusu-Kesse

David Stiepleman: My great pleasure to introduce our very good friend, Kwame Owusu-Kesse. He is the CEO and board trustee of Harlem Children's Zone. The Harlem Children's Zone is an unbelievable broad and ambitious organization, and I think it's called one of the most ambitious social policy experiments ever. Can you explain that to everybody?

Kwame Owusu-Kesse: Sure. So first and foremost, good morning everyone. It is such a pleasure to be here. So a little bit about Harlem Children's Zone. Our mission is centered on breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty from a holistic perspective, from cradles to career. And a common misperception about our work is we're just a charter school. We are way more than just the charter school. At the heart of what we do is education, but there's a host of, of supports surrounding a young person weaving together a net of services so tightly so that no one can fall through the cracks, all the way from cradle to career and everything in between. And so for us, that is high quality education, enrichments and exposures. That is community building that's leveraging social capital to be able to serve as role models as our young people that's focused on health and wellness, both physical and mental health. The best way to describe it is if you are blessed with an opportunity to care for a young person, either as a parent, brother, sister, mentor, you know that there isn't anything that you wouldn't do to make sure that young person would be on a pathway to social and economic mobility so that they can transition to independent and healthy adulthood. And that's the role that the Harlem Children's Zone plays. There's no one silver bullet. It takes a holistic, comprehensive effort to ensure that our young people can reach their potential and achieve their American dream.

David: How many people work in or at the Harlem Children’s Zone?

Kwame: We have about 1500 employees at HCZ.

David: How many clients? Families, kids?

Kwame: About 22,500 clients.

David: It's an incredible impact. Can we, let's take a step back. Talk about bingo night at the Catholic School. Why is that important?

Kwame: So Worcester is near and dear to my heart. Thankfully, I do not have a Boston accent, but I am a lover of all sports teams.

David: With no offense to our Boston office.

Kwame: Sorry about that. But I said I am a lover of all sports teams Boston, so I'm ready for all smoke being in New York City. But, I'm a proud Massachusetts son and I actually say that my story is similar to the story of the young people that we serve at Harlem Children's Zone. . A number of challenges that our young people face, I've had to face in my family. Both of my parents immigrated from Ghana, late 70s, early 80s. They were never married, uh, and grew up in tough circumstances, whether it is extreme poverty, uh, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, uh, you, you name it, high school dropout. It, it existed and it was education that changed my life trajectory. Uh, my mother played bingo at a local elementary school called Venerini Academy. And because the nuns fell in love with her and my family story, they gave me a scholarship. And that scholarship put me on an education pipeline with high quality academics, enrichments and exposures. But I also would say, most importantly, adults who believed in my potential, and the nuns would say this, and they were serious about this. They're like, Kwame, we think you could be the first black president. And this is before the age of Obama and things of that nature. Now I have zero political aspirations. Lemme just repeat that. Zero political aspirations. But they really believe that, and there is something about the energy that a young person can derive from those types of interactions, that faith and belief in your potential. That put a battery in my back that if I set my mind to high goals, that I can achieve them.

David: This is a theme in the conversations that I've had in these various podcast conversations, someone who looked at us when we were kids and said, ‘I think that you could be that,’ or you know, ‘I have confidence in you,’ and it's a wind in your sails. It really matters.

Kwame: Absolutely.

David: Like your entire life.

Kwame: Absolutely. It doesn't stop.

David: No, it doesn't. Morgan Stanley. You're at Morgan Stanley. Maybe, the story about how, how you're in the seat you're in now.

Kwame: Sure, let's do the, the full trajectory.

David: Yeah. If you don't mind.

Kwame: So go to Harvard, major in economics and come time to think about career, right, I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do with my life. So I'm like, what are my friends doing? And so that's what introduced me to the wonderful world of Wall Street investment banking 'cause everybody was doing Wall Street internships and trying to pursue the full-time careers. And quite honestly, I had no idea what investment banking was. Harvard didn't have finance majors. And so, but there weren't too many opportunities that were paying 21 year olds what they were paying at the time. And given my background, and I'm just being honest, it's like, that's too good of an opportunity to pass up and I'll learn what I need to learn, uh, on the job. So that's what actually brought me to New York City. And so that was 2006. Loved my time at Morgan Stanley. I learned a lot. I'm a nerd at heart, right? And so just being immersed in that environment, the pressure of like A+ work all of the time, learning finance, it was a live deal flow. And so I was on a number of deals, so getting very meaningful developmental experience. And I would say ironically, it was my time at Morgan Stanley that I learned of the work of the Harlem Children's Zone. So my president at the firm at the time served on the board at HCZ and Morgan Stanley has a special program called the Morgan Stanley Ambassador Program, which started in 9/11, where they would sponsor a high performing analyst to work alongside the CEO of a high performing nonprofit.

David: That's amazing.

Kwame: And, so my year I got selected out of a global applicant pool to be the Morgan Stanley Ambassador, and I had to choose between the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and this organization called the Harlem Children's Zone, which I, I never heard of. Um, and so I was like, let me explore these options. And so there was a 20 minute interview set up with some guy named Jeff Canada, who was the founder of the Harlem Children's Zone. And went to that interview. That 20 minute interview turned into like an hour and a half love fest. It was probably one way on my end, but I'm like, who is this dude? He's like, Martin Luther King, mixed with Malcolm X, mixed with like, will you be my dad? Like, I gotta work here. I gotta work for this guy. And that decision changed my life. And so I spent the next year via an externship working at the Harlem Children's Zone, uh, alongside Jeff Canada. And it was that time at the Harlem Children's Zone that kind of changed my perspective. And so decided to apply for a joint degree, um, back at Harvard, uh, master’s in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School, Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. Because I wanted to explore, from an academic perspective, this intersection of public and private sector. At the time you hear buzzwords like social entrepreneurship, impact investing. So, I didn't know if there would be a career for me at the Nexus. Would I go back to for-profit sector and do philanthropic things on the side or vice versa? But you will learn that the Harlem Children's Zone is like a gang. And so, unbeknownst to me, it was HCZ for life. Uh, and so I was all in the mix. My, in grad school, my thesis was on the Harlem Children's Zone, some internships, young professional fundraisers. And so when Jeff gave me a call back my third year in school, he said we want you to come back to HCZ, and I said, absolutely, sign me up. Had no idea how much money I would make, had no idea what my job title would be. Uh, but for me it didn't matter because it was about mission. And when I reflect back on my own personal journey, it was very much the luck of bingo that changed my life trajectory. And so I wanted to be a part of something that removed luck from the equation entirely and made that the norm – for tens and thousands of young people year in and year out. Uh, so for me, this work is extremely personal.

David: Yeah.

Kwame: This is not about charity. This is not about feeling good about myself. This is about unlocking the great potential that exists in our community. It's a community similar to one that I was raised in Worcester. And Harlem is the community I call home.

David: Yeah.

Kwame: I met my wife in Central Harlem. I'm raising my two baby girls in Central Harlem. So I'm all in personally and professionally.

David: Talk about, um, you, we don't, we don't say nonprofit. We say, what do we say?

Kwame: Tax exempt business.

David: So talk about, I mean, but that's, that's a very meaningful distinction, but can you talk about that?

Kwame: Yes. In my experience, and no shade on anybody who loves the term nonprofit, there's certain mental models associated with the term that I've found, right? And it's like, oh, how noble of you, or let's go hold hands and hug trees together, or things of that nature. And for me, nonprofit is like not a business plan, right? It's a tax efficient structure. And when I reflect back on all of the training that I've received, either on Wall Street or at HBS, all of those lessons of business are part of my everyday work. Whether it's the strategic decision making, the fundraising, good governance, communication, optimizing resources, um, financial management, talent, recruiting and, and retention. All of the core elements of running a high performing business, an institution is what is required to do this work at the highest levels of excellence. And what I mean by the highest level of excellence is what would you accept for your family? What would you accept for your child? I don't have a different expectation. And so what is required is that we need to be recognized as a center of business excellence period, not as a social enterprise, not as a nonprofit organization, but as a business. The talent I need, the resources I need in order to build an enduring institution requires that, and that's the mindset that I bring to this work.

David: There's a movie called Harlem Rising that was at South by Southwest, I dunno, last year or whatever it was.

Kwame: Two years ago.

David: And it's about the Harlem, Harlem Children's Zone. And, they're videoing this meeting in the early 90s. It's like the formation meeting at Riverside Church. And so the first thing you have is like, wow, think about that, like initial ambition to know that this is gonna be important for someone to watch at some point. Like they're thinking about themselves in sort of this historical way. And then at that meeting. Talking about these sort of cultural tenets that you're talking about, which is we've gotta be innovative, we have to be rigorous and excellent. We have to run this as the highest quality organization. And my question is, we try to do that too. Um, how do you, that that's a very hard culture to sustain over long periods of time. HCZ's way older than we are. How do we get to our next 15 years with that kind of culture?

Kwame: So building culture is extremely important. Right? And we've heard the phrase that, uh culture eats strategy for breakfast. A dear friend of mine, Jennifer Winwood, would add, for lunch and dinner as well. And what you do is really important and how you execute on that. But how you do the work actually matters and both are required in, in terms of that, that equation for success. And it's been this unrelenting pursuit of helping young people who have been under-resourced achieve the American dream. And so the Harlem Children's Zone, since our formation had a bold vision. And you started off by saying it was a bold experiment. And I say now we're no longer experimenting. Uh, we, we believe we have a generation of evidence that prove that this model works and that we have the vaccine to poverty, and now we have a responsibility to codify those best practices and share them with the field. And I think part of the early foresight to record those early meetings is understanding that we have the ability to shape history. And when we are successful, people are going to ask the question, what does it take to actually do this work? And so to be able to capture those early moments that then become a documentary, to be able to help spread the model across the field is very important and very intentional.

David: YI mean the other thing that jumped out in terms of, obviously Sixth Street's not a tax. exempt. We have some tax exemptions. But anyway, um, we have this idea of MSH ‘make stuff happen.’ You say a little differently stuff.

Kwame: Stuff.

David: And I kept hearing whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. That was the, that was like one of the catch that was one of the kind of, you know, that's exhausting. How do you maintain that?

Kwame: It's tough. I'm not even gonna lie, the Harlem Children's Zone is not an easy place to work. We don't apologize for that. Alright. This isn't, now that we've gained notoriety, a place for you to, uh, put on your resume or promote out just to, to gain off of the, the access or uh, influence that we have. This is hard work. We believe we're a frontline organization and it's gonna require the blocking and tackling to be able to remove the barriers that will prevent our young people from achieving their full potential. And so you have to be bought into this mission. You have to believe it. I think we do a really good job of recruiting a team that has that spirit of endless possibilities, that relentless pursuit of excellence. But we also make some mistakes…

David: Yeah.

Kwame: Uh, as well. And you have to cut your losses. And, when I became CEO, I wanted to be transparent about what our expectations are. Right? You don't have to work here. No one's forcing you to be here. You have a choice and you have agency.

David: Yeah.

Kwame: But if you choose to be here, it's my responsibility to make sure it's one of the best professional choices that you have ever made. But I'm not gonna lie to you and say that it's not gonna be hard. There's gonna be sacrifices that need to be made on behalf of our community because that's what's required and that's what we would do for our own.

David: Yeah. That's sort of institutional logic you can call against or call into being when you're having those conversations. I think that's a super important

Kwame: Absolutely. Absolutely.

David: Um. Taking over the organization and stepping into the shoes maybe in a little indirectly, but still stepping into the shoes of a very charismatic founder who's been there forever and is still there. And doing, we'll talk about maybe the Wilson Institute, but how do you navigate that?

Kwame: Wow. Um, and so I'm the third CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone. So, uh, Anne Williams Isom, uh, former Deputy Mayor of New York was Jeff's immediate successor. I was Anne's, COO. And when Anne, transitioned, I became CEO. So we say that Anne had very tough shoes to fill. I had very tough pumps to fill. And now as CEO in 2020, there was a daunting task ahead of us. But what I love about Harlem Children's Zone is our intentionality around succession planning. And so. I was announced as CEO elect in November of 2019. What that allowed me to do was build my strategic plan and vision, socialize it in the typical like 101st days that a CEO would get early so I could have stakeholder buy-in. That is what actually prepared me from when March 2020 occurred 'cause I already had a strategic plan in place, um, that ironically we were able to adjust accordingly, given the pandemic. And for me, and I always say this, there is no amount of Harvard degrees Wall Street training or titles that will mute the natural insecurities that come up when you're put in tough positions. Right? You're gonna question, do I have the skills to really do this? Will I succeed? What happens if I fail? Literally, the world is watching us. There's so much at stake. And so for me, I say asking for help is a sign of intelligence, not weakness. And I needed help and we needed capacity, right? There is, we're facing uncertain times. My executive team was, half of us were new to the organization, half of us were new to being executives, all operating in an unknown context. And so I needed capacity. Uh, so I now recruited Jeff Canada out of retirement. And he is leading our national impact work, what we're calling our William Julius Wilson Institute. And we've, we've always had a hand in national impact, but that was very much folks coming to the Harlem Children's Zone to learn our story. And there've been three federal initiatives modeled off of our work and multi-billions of dollars invested, uh, into the field based off of the Harlem Children's Zone model. But, based off of what we saw with how we were working, uh, with folks in COVID in a bespoke context, leveraging local expertise and the idiosyncratic nature of, uh, certain environments, is there a more outbound approach where we can bring the best practices of our model, but work with on the ground leaders to be able to have better tailored solutions anchored on our cradle to career model? And so, Jeff and I have partnered in that, so we co-founded the William Julius Wilson Institute.

David: And Professor Wilson is a distinguished…

Kwame: Social Professor, yes. Sociologist at Harvard. Very much influential on how Jeff, uh, viewed this work and had two books, um, and I think one of which is “When Work Disappears,” that was very influential, um, about how all of this is connected in terms of the economy. Uh, social ills that we see that devastate places. And things of that nature. And so, um, Jeff and I, I think we make a formidable tag team. And a lot of people ask like, why the hell would you bring back the founder, the charismatic founder? And I respond, why the hell not? For me this is not about ego. I'm very confident in my ability. And I know what I don't know. But I also have skills I can bring to bear. Why would I not bring our modern day Martin Luther King back to one, I have a built in Yoda that I get to work with every single day. Uh, but more importantly, to be able to, to be that leverage capacity to travel all across the nation. Given what he represents while I continue to focus on honing our excellence here in Harlem.

David: You’re in the seat five years. There's generational change happening at some other, what I would call national tax exempt businesses, um, civil society, uh, organizations, the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller, they're going to or has new leadership. How do you, do you think about yourself as part of that cohort and what you're trying to, like, what, what, what's, do you debate the sort of role of your organizations in society? One way to think about what you're, what you're talking about in terms of the sort of comprehensive services is it's an incredible accomplishment, you know when you listed out how many clients you have it's unbelievable. One other response to that is this is what the government's supposed to be doing. Like, this is what our society's supposed to be doing, taking care of our children. So how do you think about that? Do you debate that with your, with your peers?

Kwame: So that was a multilayer question. Uh, let me handle different aspects of that. So, we view ourselves as an innovation hub for the field, and part of our model in leveraging private capital is that we have the flexibility to be able to prove our model works and the ideas then influence policy for government to adopt. And I, we've had success in that. There's been three federal initiatives. There's promised neighborhoods. Choice neighborhoods, promise zones. And I think somewhere close to $3 billion have been invested over the last 10 to 15 years around that. And so for us, we all play a role in this ecosystem, private tax exempt businesses, government, and we are very mindful of our responsibility to model excellence, codify the best practices, have the data and evidence to be able to invest in necessary resources on a grander scale that government and others can, can take on. To the initial question about how do I see myself in comparison to other tax exempt businesses. The honest answer is I don't compare myself to anyone. Um, for me, I'm laser focused on our mission because while we have achieved a lot of success, right, eliminated achievement gaps, we have a thousand young people enrolled in college, probably close to 2000 who've graduated from college. We've have lowered obesity and overweight rates in central Harlem. There's so many stats and figures. There's still significant, a lot of work to do. I'm mindful about what we represent in the field and what we represent in this country, and so I accept that responsibility. I think literally the eyes of the world are on us, and I always say to my team, it's not every day you're given opportunity to create history. And so that we feel that, but we're not in the game to try to compare from one organization to another. I think there are a lot of fantastic organizations out there doing fantastic work and we're just trying to make sure our piece of the puzzle is delivered at the highest level of excellence.

David: Can you talk about the Wealth Builds Initiative? It's sort of a, it's one of a long series of incredible innovations from HCZ ability. It's super interesting.

Kwame: So again, the nerd finance in me. For an organization whose mission is breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty, and we have already eliminated the achievement gap in our schools, it is for me the logical next step to be able to address wealth gaps. And we've had so much success with young people graduating college. But they are one emergency away from financial ruin. And so Wealth Builds actually came about at a time where I was thinking about my family. We were welcoming our second child in, and I'm thinking about estate planning and life insurance and trust and all of the financial tools that folks with access think about in terms of preservation. Support for their family's legacy.

David: Yeah.

Kwame: And who's thinking about that for communities impacted by poverty. And so what Wealth Builds is, modeled off of our comprehensive approach and also informed by our COVID strategy, is can we have a bold initiative anchored in nine research backed pillars where we marry financial education with financial capital layered on top of our comprehensive cradle to career platform. And so, said differently, our theory of action is services from a comprehensive perspective, from cradle to career plus capital. And there's three forms of capital, human capital, social capital, financial capital, um, leads to impact. And for me can we create the escape velocity for our communities from the gravitational pull of intergenerational poverty? So what that, uh, entails, I'm about to nerd out for a little bit. Uh, the, the nine pillars. Uh, our first is, um, family empowerment. We have a relationship with a foundation that's making some incremental investments. And some of our mothers and caregivers in baby college. $500 a month, a $1000 a month, no strings attached. We know what the research says about lowering childhood poverty and what that means for future prospects for young people. We have a pillar, college savings accounts. Uh, research says you're five times more likely to graduate college with $500 in college savings, right? I want all our kids to have $500 in college savings, and we know it's not just about the money, right? It's almost the metaphysics of visualizing college as attainable and knowing that there's a support system. One of the most innovative pillars is what we call our youth opportunity fund. Think of the Harlem Children's Zone as the GP of a fund. My young people will be LPs in the fund. We will take $10,000 allocations, invest it on their behalf with some of the best money managers in the world that we have access to. And this is not guaranteed money. They have to earn it. By hitting critical milestones along the cradle to career journey, and they won't be able to access the funds until at least age 25 and can only be used for wealth creative activities like down payment on the home, continuing education, entrepreneurial investment, retirement savings. And what I love about this is this ecosystem of economic mobility that is created. And so, like for example, and one of my favorite examples. We're an LP in an amazing fund, called Westbound that's based out in California. Westbound, uh, when they were Concrete Rose, had a portfolio company named Esusu. Esusu, which is now a unicorn, their core product is anchored on building financial credit for residents for on time rental payment. Our living expenses is probably one of the most significant portions of, of our capital that we disperse. And, and so they have a product that our community very much can benefit from. Both Esusu and Westbound, if appropriate, will make internship opportunities available for our young people. And Esusu has also pledged $1 million emergency relief fund for any of our families potentially facing rental arrears or eviction. So you can see how you're building, um, economic mobility in so many different ways and making sure that we're being mindful about who are the investors on behalf of our young people and having access to, to capital and leveraging our platform and the network effect. So I can go on and on. I'm not allowed to have a favorite pillar – that's my favorite. Uh, other pillars are financial education, right? We're an organization anchored on education. So that's financial literacy courses in our schools and it's workshops and, uh, financial clubs and after school program we have scholarship and loan assistance. We've, in the first two years, given out close to $4 million in college scholarships, so over 400 graduate and high school students, uh, in Harlem. We also launched a national scholarship program to some of our partner cities. Um, there's so many other things. Financial, uh, education for the community, which we call financial inclusion. There's, uh, a retirement pillar. Policy and advocacy, uh, and entrepreneurship and, and, and career, all of which lead to putting young people on the path to social and economic mobility. And I should mention, to date, we've raised over $125 million towards this effort. And the ultimate goal is to eventually get to 10 cities. The dollars that we have raised now will allow us to go to two to three cities. And so we are really excited about continuing to innovate on the ground in Harlem, codifying best practices, sharing them with colleagues, uh, in the field because that's how we're gonna have meaningful impact at scale.

David: It's funny, I was gonna ask you, um, you know, being forces for good in our various communities around the world is very important to everybody here. I was gonna ask you sort of what, what have you seen the most effective… but I think you just kind of made the list of like, at least six of those nine things we can be helpful on. So, um, but any, any observations about sort of your private capital partners and how we’re helpful.

Kwame: Uh, one capital is very helpful. And I don't say that facetiously, right? Because oftentimes there's a desire in my experience that corporations want to give the lowest amount of money for the biggest amount of visibility. Where these ambitious efforts require capital.

David: Yeah.

Kwame: And will have a tremendous payout from a societal perspective, from an impact perspective. And so I think helping shift mental models about the resources required is, is a, a really big, um, important role that private sector can play. For me, because I'm a nerd, understanding successful models, like what is effective in business practice, what are KPIs that businesses are using, what are communities that they're engaged in? Partnerships, strategic thought partnerships, the resources, um, other efforts to help support organizations. And this is not just about the Harlem Children's Zone, like excellence comes in many different forms. And yes, please, if available and have the resources, I will gladly accept any donations to the Harlem Children's Zone. But this is bigger than just one organization, right? This is about America's children. And so when you find an organization that is aligned from a values perspective, that there's faith in the leadership and their ability to be mindful of limited resources and be able to execute at the highest standards of excellence, we need to invest in them in the same way that you think about any of the investments, uh, that are in your portfolio. Um, you should be looking at tax exempt businesses with the same framework. And we all play a role, uh, in this. And, and for me and my business experience, particularly at the Harlem Children's Zone, it's because of private capital that allows us to have the innovation that we have. And quite frankly it's because of an organization like the investment bank that I worked for, that I am actually at a place like the Harlem Children's Zone. And so, I think it works both ways. That sometimes there is unfair labels that are put on folks with the pursuit of capital. I'm like, no, no, we need that capital. Please invest in us. Uh, but we are all part of an ecosystem and there's a symbiotic relationship. And so this is not just about like feel good or charity, this is about investment in community because we all have aligned interest in the success of America's children.

David: Yeah, it kind of matters. It's, it's kind of material, but living in the places, living and being able to be productive citizens. I want to leave time for some people to ask questions if they have them.

Kwame: No hard questions, please.

Audience Member 1: You talked a lot about cradle to career. How do you guys track that? That's a lot given all of the issues. How do you track that to success?

Kwame: Right. First, let me define what Cradle to Career means in our context. Uh, because often there's a misconception about what that entails. So we're in place-based work, and what the research says is within a 0.6 mile radius of where a child is born and raised almost has everything to do with the future prospects of success. Um, so we're, we're focused on the neighborhood as a unit of change. But this is not about the presence of having good practice program or best practice program across the developmental stage. Cradle to Career is actually about the journey of an individual through those stages, right? So what good is it to have a really dope middle school across town that a young person in a community impacted by poverty doesn't have access to? So it's about along each developmental stage of a young person, that young person having access to high quality, um, enrichments exposures, role models, mentors, academic program, et cetera, et cetera. And we have to track the data. So we have built quite the robust data ecosystem. So we have an evaluation department full of all types of PhDs and degrees that I can't read. Um, and it's really important because that's what helps tells the story of impact. And while I don't need an RCT to tell you why investing in young people is important. But if we wanna have the impact that we want to have, we need to know how to speak the language of, of policy. We need to know how to, uh, speak the language of fundraising and investing and there's no way around it. That's data. That's what I learned in finance. That's the core of business. What is the evidence to be able to prove that this is a worthwhile investment? And so all of our programs have data aids and data managers. Uh, robust data systems that we continue to iterate and improve on, again, internal and external evaluations to be able to measure our impact, longitudinal studies. All of that is important in telling the story and codifying the best practices about what is required to do this work.

Audience Member 2: I've got a question. How has Harlem Children’s Zone seen the need and the resources available change? And how do you interact or partner with kind of the, any of other proliferating uh, tax exempt businesses focused on youth like Harlem Rbi, Hockey Harlem, Harlem Lacross, etc?

Kwame: Great. So it's a great question. So given the changing dynamics of Harlem, particularly with gentrification, how is that impacting the work in, um, partnerships? It's pretty interesting when you think about the impact of doing good work. If we are successful in what we have set out to do, you are building a place that people want to live. Therefore, people are going to want to move there. And so from a macroeconomic perspective, it's inevitable when you think about the forces of gentrification when doing this work. The question becomes how do you ensure the community that you are working with can benefit from the gentrification and things of, of that nature that's occurring. So even in the early days we had, um, a program called the Till Program. It was like the tenant interim lease program that allowed some of our residents, if they, um, did some coaching and um, went to some workshops that can buy their apartments for like $250. And now when you think about what has happened, there's a lot of people that benefited, uh, from that. The other reality is we say we work at the deep end of the pool. So we work in deep pockets of concentrated poverty, right? We built our new school building in the middle of one of the toughest housing developments in Harlem. It has about 4,000 residents, about 11 buildings, average family income of four is about $18,100. Half of the adults are unemployed. And so while there are macroeconomic forces happening throughout Harlem, broadly, there are still deep seated pockets that need our work more now than ever. And so I hope one day to be out of business because we are successful. Um, but there's so much work that still needs to be done. And we partner with a whole host, uh, of tax exempt organizations and other service providers, whether it's from gymnastics or tennis, uh, to other community programming, health and wellness programming. And, and for us, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. So if there's pockets of excellence that exist we want to, um, connect now. What is typically spoken about in the field that I'm in, that is a pet peeve of mine, is like, ‘oh, you work with kids. X organization work with kids. Why don't you work together?’ No one says that in finance, right? Like, ‘hey you work with money, you work with money. Why don't you work together?’ And if they do, there's a whole bunch of lawyers that get together to figure out from a merger and acquisition perspective, right? And so if I'm running a business, like it has to make sense. It has to be at the highest level of equality. And so we're not an easy partner because there's a, a big screen that you have to be able to go through to make sure that we can hold each other collectively accountable to the highest standards of excellence. And so I just had to take this opportunity to do that. But that concludes, uh, today's TED Talk on partnership in tax exempt organizations.

Audience Member 3: How many of your alumni’s come back and be a part of the mission, be part of the journey of helping the young people giving back?

Kwame: That's a great question. Last I checked about 70 to 75% of our young people when they graduate college, returned to, to Harlem. And a lot of 'em work for me, uh, in various capacities. Now I don't want all of them to work for me. The whole point is spread your wings and fly please. Far, far away. Um, but no, all, all jokes aside, and, and that's part of what we're trying to cultivate when we think about, uh, our responsibility as citizens. So much has been poured into our young people, and can we instill in them a commitment of paying it forward, whatever that means. For some people that is, you're gonna be one of our teachers. You're gonna be one of our after school art specialist. Um, or it might just be you are wildly successful at making a bunch of money and donating back to the Harlem Children's Zone, of course. Um, so it, it, it looks different in different ways. Uh, but it's HCZ for life. Remember I told you that's, it is gang mentality from that perspective. And so, uh, we do a really good job of, of letting our young people know that HCZ will always be home for them.

Audience Member 4: Other leaders you look up to and learn from outside of Jeff directly or, yeah, so far.

Kwame: That's a great question. So the question is other leaders that I look up to. The honest answer, I didn't really grow up with a lot of role models. And when I got to college, this idea of like peer role models really crystallized for me. And so I've been so blessed with a network of folks all around my age, yourself included, uh, that we inspire each other. This idea of iron sharpens iron, it's not competition. Uh, so it's my roommates and block mates from school. It's, uh, my homegirls at school that used to tutor me and hold me down and hold, hold me accountable. It's all of my colleagues in investment banking. It's my, my colleagues in, in the field of entrepreneurship and investing. It's my team at the Harlem Children's Zone. So very much leaning into this idea of peer mentorship that we are all we got in certain instances. And now there are so many folks that have invested in me, whether it's Stan Druckenmiller, um, you mentioned Jeff. Uh, my board is fantastic. Professors at my school, Anita, Tom DeLong. Some of my friend's parents. But for me, when I brought in that aperture, there's been so many people who've been in my life who've believed in my potential and have poured into me, right? I, I don't ever say that I'm self-made or pulled myself up outta bootstraps. It's, I am the manifestation of so many people who have poured into me. And I feel that responsibility deeply and hope that I can make that community support proud.

David: I love that. I feel like there's a real spiritual alignment between our institutions and I think learning can and should go both ways and I can't thank you enough for spending the time with us. It's great.

Kwame: Stieps, I appreciate you, man. I love you. This is fantastic.