The City of Richmond has received a grant from Capital One through the company’s recently launched Impact Initiative, a program that seeks to close gaps in equity and promote social and economic opportunity in the Richmond region.
 
The support from Capital One will help the city fund an equity study, equity and inclusivity training for city staff, and the development of action plans to operationalize solutions throughout city policies, practices and procedures.
 
“Our goal is to normalize racial equity and justice within city conversations, work and culture and operationalize them so that equity and justice are visible in everything our city does,” said Mayor Stoney. “We are truly grateful for the support of partners like Capital One helping to expand our capacity to do this critical work.”
 
“Richmond was once the second largest epicenter of the domestic trading of enslaved Africans, served as the former capital of the confederacy and was a stalwart of Massive Resistance, so it is unequivocally clear that racism has been intentionally built into systems and structures within this city that have harmed Black, brown and Indigenous people for generations,” said Osita Iroegbu, Senior Policy Advisor for Community Engagement, Inclusion and Equity. “It is now our obligation to be just as intentional about creating new systems that work for, and no longer against, those communities.”

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