Capital, like water, flows through the path of least resistance—but for businesses in overlooked areas, that path is often clogged. Local government leaders play a critical role in directing capital to attract and retain businesses, but their impact is limited on the broader community ecosystem—especially in undervalued commercial corridors. According to public capital decision-makers in our network, this barrier to investment can be removed.

Local government agencies who serve businesses in their city—what we call Business-Serving Agencies, or BSAs—can become catalysts for capital beyond public funds by partnering with philanthropic and private capital providers to create more inclusive economic outcomes. Local governments are often misunderstood as having deep financial reserves; in reality, they are stewards of public dollars that come with boundaries. That said, they can still organize and leverage capital locally in powerful ways, removing barriers to investment in undervalued areas.

In our Truist Foundation-supported Breaking Barriers to Business (B3) initiative, local government leaders are reshaping how capital flows into their cities’ undervalued commercial corridors through an innovation we’ve coined “Sustained Capital Tables.” Simply put, a Sustained Capital Table is a group of lenders, investors, and grantors regularly convened by a BSA with an aligned mission to channel financial capital through corridor infrastructure, local business support organizations, and directly to business owners.

These tables serve as a central place for capital providers to learn alongside one another about impactful business development objectives that are being achieved in commercial corridors. When motivated, they can pool capital to share in the success. The cherry on top is that by putting a little skin in the game, BSAs can leverage public funds to attract matching funds from private and philanthropic sources.

As our partners in each city have begun to organize their Sustained Capital Tables, we couldn’t leave you hanging without insights that could be helpful – we wanted to give you a sneak peek at some of the first objectives each table plans to accomplish. Happy learning.

Read the full article about investing in overlooked areas by Norris Williams and Sheila Nelms at Living Cities.