Press Release: Accelerator for America Part of Kansas City Opportunity Zone Investor Summit June 26-27

ACCELERATOR FOR AMERICA PART OF KANSAS CITY OPPORTUNITY ZONE INVESTOR SUMMIT JUNE 26-27

Summit is part of Accelerator's work with Kansas City to make sure that OZ's bring inclusive growth to underserved areas, not just private sector returns 

KANSAS CITY, MO — Accelerator for America Director of Economic Development and Opportunity Zones Aaron Thomas, and Accelerator Partner and policy expert Bruce Katz will attend the Kansas City Opportunity Zone Investor Summit in Kansas City, Missouri on June 26 and 27. The summit which was developed in collaboration with Accelerator partner Bruce Katz and led by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, will bring investors and entrepreneurs together with local policymakers, experts, and community leaders to ensure that investments in Opportunity Zones benefit their local residents.

"This model -- the locally driven investor summit -- is one that we helped inspire, and Kansas City is one of the first iterations of this," said Thomas. "We've been supporting Kansas City in this work over the last 9 months and this is a high point of it."

"As investors flock to take advantage of this powerful tax incentive, we must make sure that the people who live in these sectors benefit as well," said Katz. "By bringing the public, private, and nonprofit sector together, we can assure that these investments are funneled in a way that does the most good."

The Accelerator, which held its national Opportunity Zones Investor Summit in partnership with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth at Stanford University earlier this year, is helping cities across the country create their own summits.

See more info about the Kansas City Summit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/we-grow-kc-tickets-61226653569

ABOUT ACCELERATOR FOR AMERICA

Accelerator for America launches and replicates local initiatives to improve people’s lives in communities across the country to create national change from the bottom up. The Accelerator developed the “Investment Prospectus” tool to help local communities partner with the private sector to steer capital toward investments that deliver a return for investors and local residents. Opportunity Zones could attract $100 billion in capital.

The Accelerator is also working with local governments across the country to generate local infrastructure revenues instead of relying on the unmet federal infrastructure promise. An example is Los Angeles County’s Measure M, which was approved in November 2016 and generates $120 billion and 465,000 career jobs. On that same election day, which also elected Donald Trump to the White House, local governments nationwide approved $230 billion in local infrastructure improvements.

Visit: http://www.acceleratorforamerica.org

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