Where We’re Rooted

Where We’re Rooted

RUNWAY ROOTS IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE IN:

RUNWAY ROOTS IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE IN:

RUNWAY Roots takes a place-based, community-centered approach to expanding capital access. We partner with trusted, on-the-ground organizations that are already cultivating power, possibility, and wealth in their communities.

ACROSS ALL REGIONS, OUR APPROACH IS ROOTED IN:

  • Listening deeply to local ecosystems to understand the unique needs of local entrepreneurs and the infrastructure needed to support them

  • Working closely with community partners to offer entrepreneurs coaching, business education, power building opportunities, and capital readiness programs that are culturally relevant

  • Co-designing community-led underwriting processes that prioritize trust, relationships, and lived experience over traditional financial risk assessment

  • Uplifting community wisdom by ensuring our investment decisions are shaped by those closest to the issues

This is how we build an economy rooted in care, justice, and liberation.

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, CA is where RUNWAY Roots was born—and where our movement toward reparative capital began. In deep collaboration with grassroots partners, we’re expanding our work in the Bay Area through the RUNWAY ROOTED Fund—bringing our evolving model of character-based lending and wraparound support to even more entrepreneurs across the region.

Greater Boston Area

Our Boston pilot program offered vital lessons—guidance we’re using to reimagine how capital moves in the region. Building on that foundation, we’re expanding and evolving our presence in the Greater Boston Area. We are co-designing a community-led, repair-centered model alongside local organizers and finance partners who share our values of trust and care. This expanded approach will deepen relationships, bring character-based underwriting, and offer robust wraparound support for the Greater Boston Area’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Greater Chicago Area

The entrepreneurial ecosystem in Greater Chicago is rich with innovation and culture. The windy city has long been a place where organizers, builders, and bold visionaries reshape systems from the ground up. Through the RUNWAY Rooted Fund, we are deepening our investment in that legacy—moving capital that repairs and restores. Alongside powerful local partners, we are supporting entrepreneurs in Black communities who are building businesses as vehicles for justice, joy, and transformation. 

Our Partners:
Chordata Capital | Good Chaos

Lower Alabama Region

In the South, we’re supporting entrepreneurs in Black communities in rewriting their financial narratives. Our work in Lower Alabama is rooted in honoring the city’s complex history while investing in its powerful future. By partnering with grassroots leaders who are deeply embedded in their communities, we help ensure capital reaches the people most often left behind by extractive systems.

Richmond, VA & Hampton Roads Region

Richmond and the Hampton Roads Region are areas of Virginia that are steeped in Black economic self-determination. As we expand The RUNWAY Rooted Fund, we’re actively seeking values-aligned partners with deep connections in the community to co-create pathways for reparative capital and power building. If you are a local changemaker who is reshaping what entrepreneurship looks like—from small businesses to collective organizing—we’d love to partner with you.