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Two educators from Brown School have been granted a total of $1.4 million in funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to facilitate research aimed at enhancing economic mobility and mitigating wealth inequalities.

Heather Cameron, serving as the Michael B. Kaufman Professor of Practice in Social Entrepreneurship, has secured $920,000 to investigate how Community Wealth Building (CWB) approaches can bolster economic mobility in the Kansas City region. CWB initiatives prioritize local democratic control of community resources and have been implemented in various U.S. cities to promote inclusive economic development.

Jason Jabbari, an assistant professor, head of the Center for Education Research, Practice, and Policy Partnerships, and leader of community engagement at the Center for Social Development, has received $500,000 to assess the influence of the Cristo Rey Network’s Corporate Work-Study Program on social mobility. This pioneering high school initiative serves low-income pupils, blending college-preparatory education with real-world work experiences.

Cameron’s initiative will investigate how effective CWB frameworks from other U.S. urban areas, like worker cooperatives, employee-owned enterprises, limited-equity housing, and community investment trusts, can be tailored to suit Kansas City’s distinct economic and demographic landscape. The objective is to pinpoint scalable methods customized for the city.

“Asset ownership through entrepreneurship has long been recognized as a catalyst for economic mobility, providing vital pathways to bridge racial wealth gaps in underrepresented communities,” Cameron remarked.

This marks Cameron’s fourth initiative backed by the Kauffman Foundation. She will collaborate with the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, the Democracy Collaborative, and Peter Boumgarden, the Koch Family Professor of Practice in Family Enterprise at Olin Business School and head of the Koch Family Center for Family Enterprise, along with numerous Kansas City organizations such as AltCap, Community Capital Fund, and Trust Neighborhoods.

“We are eager to collaborate with Kansas City organizations and decision-makers to investigate how community wealth-building strategies validated in other U.S. cities can foster inclusive prosperity,” Cameron expressed.

Jabbari, together with Shaun Dougherty from Boston College, Lauren Russell from the University of Pennsylvania, and Fahvyon Jimenez of Jimenez Strategy & Analytics, will assess whether the distinctive education model of Cristo Rey affects crucial indicators of social mobility, such as job placement, income, credit health, and college completion rates. The study will compare Cristo Rey alumni to peers who either did not complete or did not participate in the program, with a particular emphasis on the Cristo Rey Kansas City institution to gain deeper insights into the distinctive school model.

“This will be among the first longitudinal studies aimed at gauging the enduring social and economic effects of career-connected learning within a college-prep context,” Jabbari stated. “Our goal is to determine if this hybrid framework offers advantages over traditional academic or career and technical education routes in promoting social mobility and racial equity, potentially influencing the expansion of these innovative models in Missouri.”

This endeavor builds upon Jabbari’s ongoing research into how students cultivate professional skills and habits in both work and educational environments and how those skills correlate with social mobility.

These grants are part of a comprehensive effort by the Kauffman Foundation, based in Kansas City, to support data-driven solutions designed to eliminate the racial wealth gap and enhance equitable economic opportunities in the area.

“We take pride in supporting this group of researchers tackling the pressing and complex challenge of enhancing equitable economic mobility,” stated DeAngela Burns-Wallace, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. “This funding presents an exciting opportunity to deepen our understanding of the dynamics contributing to wealth gaps, which are expanding both locally and nationally.”

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