Crossroads Charlotte

Instead of turning away from the disappointing result in a social capital survey that revealed Charlotte ranked 39th out of 40 communities in the nation on levels of interracial trust, Foundation For The Carolinas chose to face this issue head on. The Foundation engaged the community in a large-scale initiative to improve access, equity and inclusion among Charlotte-Mecklenburg citizens.

That initiative, Crossroads Charlotte is a major collaborative civic project designed to increase social capital. The project encourages concerned residents and influential organizations to make proactive decisions today that remove barriers of mistrust and shape a positive future for tomorrow.

In its initial phase, Crossroads Charlotte encouraged corporate and civic leaders to examine four plausible scenarios of our city’s future and craft steps that would steer the community toward better outcomes. Each story painted a vivid picture of what Charlotte could look like in the year 2015 and started a civic dialogue about ways to become a more inclusive and trusting community.

Crossroads Charlotte has been a significant project of Foundation For The Carolinas since its launch in 2004. The Foundation has allotted a portion of its discretionary funding to ensure its success and is participating in the initiative along with 34 other organizations.

Crossroads Charlotte advanced to a new stage in 2007 when 15 of the original participating organizations—representing corporate, service, nonprofit and government sectors—introduced individual civic projects each organization would undertake to address issues of access, inclusion and equity. Fifteen more organizations are expected to announce projects in the near future.

Foundation For The Carolinas, through its Community Philanthropy department, manages the Crossroads project. Key programmatic elements are administered through the Community Building Initiative, a nonprofit established to achieve racial and ethnic inclusion and equity in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.