The Opportunity and Peril in Opportunity Zones
From the plenary stage of the Mission Investors Exchange 2018 National Conference, Dr. Rajiv Shah, President of The Rockfeller Foundation, urgently called for foundations to make the most of the Opportunity Zones program, a recently announced government incentive intended to spur long-term investments in low-income census tracts in the U.S. “I hope that we all can move fast enough,” Rajiv said. “Otherwise, we make this big tax investment in people who have quite a lot of wealth, and a lot of unrealized capital gains. And the consequence of that [is] not lifting up those that this was intended to lift up.”
The opportunity in Opportunity Zones is "huge, with more than $6 trillion in such capital gains, according to the Economic Innovation Group." However, the potential for negative impact is also acknowleged as foundations figure out how to take advantage of the program while keeping their communities' interest a priority.
Read this Impact Alpha article discussing the conference session, and visit MIE's Opportunity Zone resource page for more information.
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