THEN: The 10-36  Plan, an interview with Pastor Michael A Majors

Solutions for Now: Economic Inclusion

Economic exclusion in Philadelphia is not the result of individual choices but of how the system is structured. Entire neighborhoods face the same barriers simultaneously: structural barriers, limited access to capital, fewer pathways to ownership, unstable housing, and jobs that do not lead to long-term security. When most residents in a community are tenants, when local businesses are owned by people outside the neighborhood, and when generational assets are lost or never built, the outcome is not personal failure but a shared condition. People are working, contributing, and making decisions within the options available to them. The issue is that those options are constrained in ways that affect entire communities at once, limiting their ability to fully participate, and build wealth collectively.

The conditions that gave rise to Rev. Leon Sullivan’s 10-36 Plan still echo in Philadelphia today, though they appear in different forms. The median household income in the city is around $60,000, according to the  US Census Bureau, while nearly half of renters and over a quarter of homeowners are cost-burdened, spending at least 30% of their income on housing, according to the PEW Charitable Trust. In many neighborhoods, incomes fall far below that median, tightening the gap between what people earn and what it costs to live. While workforce participation has rebounded in recent years and there has been a growth in new businesses, many residents remain concentrated in low-wage industries. Taken together, these trends point to a familiar pattern: people are participating in Philadelphia’s economy but are not consistently positioned to build, retain, or benefit from ownership over time.

The 10-36 Plan translated vision into tangible outcomes. Projects like OIC, Zion Gardens, and Progress Plaza showed that community-led investment could produce housing, commercial activity, and jobs. The model also demonstrated how economic pressure could be used to open doors to employment and opportunity. 

Would it work today?

Jim Burnett, CEO of VestedIn, noted that while there is a desire to participate in Philadelphia’s economy, “there is more desire to have businesses that are single-person businesses, as opposed to job-creating businesses. That unfortunately creates a need for more people to grow collectively than you would have if you had folks who are hiring folks and growing together in that space.”  According to Forbes, 80% of small businesses “operate without any staff…[totaling] 61.6 million people. This figure represents 45.9% of the entire U.S. workforce.” A recent SBA report highlighted that nonemployer businesses make up 1.2 million small businesses operating in Pennsylvania, while in Philadelphia, Pew found that more than 6 out of 10 NPT filers were sole proprietorships, the majority of which were lower-income and family-owned businesses.

The 10-36 Plan, Burnett stated, “was the continuation of us being able to grow communities.” Single-person entities, he believes, reduce opportunities for community participation and limit the ability to scale, especially when you are part of a community that faces barriers to jobs and capital.

Across Philadelphia, chambers of commerce, CDFIs, nonprofits, workforce programs, and community development organizations are working to address different parts of this challenge. These efforts are critical and, in many cases, deeply rooted in the communities they serve. But the system they operate within often hinders collective success. One such effort Jim pointed to was the city’s land bank. After receiving a call from a city council member about supporting Black residents in acquiring properties from the land bank, he and his team developed a program to help people get prepared to do just that.

“This is a problem we could actually solve.” Burnett emphasized. “If you really want Black folks to get properties, if you are city council and you are the mayor and you say you want properties to move faster, you put the infrastructure in place for properties to move faster. But for me, the bigger problem was the lack of Black and brown participation in the real estate industry. So could we leverage this problem to address the issue of why Black folks cannot get property out of the land bank, and use it to grow a more Black and brown real estate ecosystem in Philadelphia?”

With two cohorts completed and a waiting list of hundreds, they build a community-led program that de-risk real estate investment and prepares Black developers to be successful. However, “while we have moved on all the other problems,” Burnett shared,  “the problem we are still having is getting property out of the land bank.”  Today Burnett and his team fund the projects directly to invest in the community they believe in and to not allow the community to be hindered by structural barriers.

From Leon Sullivan’s 10-36 plan to the Black Squirrel real estate program, Philadelphia then and now has examples of what community-led ownership and investment can look like. And while the region has a wide network of organizations working to expand opportunity, the question remains, how can those pieces come together to reduce constraints that affect entire communities at once, to increase their ability to participate fully in the economy, and build and retain wealth collectively.

Lessons to consider

Design policies that help people move from access to ownership. Jobs and housing provide stability, but without pathways to assets such as homes, businesses, and equity, economic exclusion persists.

Align public, private, and community capital around shared ownership goals. City, state, and federal resources should coordinate with philanthropy to support community-controlled development, not just individual programs.

Fund models that build and retain wealth, not just deliver services. Philanthropy can shift from short-term stabilization to long-term investment in assets, pooled capital, and ownership structures.

Remove structural barriers to capital and participation. Lending practices, credit requirements, and procurement policies must be reworked to include those historically excluded.

Support community-led solutions with sustained investments. Movement leaders and local organizations are already piloting effective approaches; scaling these efforts requires consistent, long-term support.