Citizenship Education Fund
About Citizenship Education Fund (CEF)
The Citizenship Education Fund (CEF) is a 501(c) (3), and an Affiliate of Rainbow PUSH Coalition. We empower citizenry through the efficacy of public policies that benefit education and businesses with socio-economic solutions while making connections between the greater community and the disenfranchised. It accomplishes this through education and research on a variety of issues that affect people’s daily lives. CEF conducts research, collects data on non-partisan initiatives, and organizes seminars and public awareness campaigns on a variety of policy issues. CEF also promulgates the democratic principles of civic virtue in order to improve life opportunities for those persons who are often voiceless and forgotten.
Mission Statement
The mission of Citizenship Education Fund is to advocate for persons who are disconnected from the routine processes of government and full economic participation in business and markets by expanding upon our founding democratic principles, promoting civic virtue, expanding electoral participation, and enhancing economic influence.
Below are the initiatives and programs we have developed to assist us with fulfilling our mission.
The Citizenship Education Fund established the Peachtree Street Project in Atlanta in 1999 to conduct research and education activities designed to enlighten the public’s understanding of equal opportunity in Southeast. Modeled after the Wall Street Project in New York, the Peachtree Street Project is an initiative of The Citizenship Education Fund (CEF), CEF was founded by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. and is a charitable research and education chartered in Ohio and is governed by an independent board of directors.
The Peachtree Street Project was charged with reviewing corporate social responsibility, with a particular emphasis on performance in the areas of gender, ethnicity and racial inclusion practiced by publicly-traded corporations based in the Southeastern United States. The Peachtree Street Project has previously performed studies of the number of blacks, minorities and women on corporate boards of directors, and reviewed anecdotal evidence regarding diversity and inclusion.
In the course of conduction its work the Peachtree Street Project regularly reviews diversity rankings published by Fortune, Diversity. Inc. and others. A pattern was observed indication that relatively few firms based in the Southeast were placing significant emphasis on diversity or inclusion. It further appeared that robust programs to accomplish equal opportunity equal opportunity were rare among companies based in the region. This report is an attempt to quantify readily accessible data as a starting point of establishing a benchmark for firms based in the Southeast.
The Wall Street Project was founded in 1996 by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., and the Citizenship Education Fund; it was officially launched by Rev. Jesse Jackson and prominent minority business owners on January 15, 1997, Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday.
The Wall Street Project challenges Corporate America to end the multi-billion dollar trade deficit with minority vendors and consumers, while working to ensure equal opportunities for culturally diverse employees, entrepreneurs and consumers.
“The Wall Street Project is not an end in itself,” says Rev. Jackson, “nor a means to an end. It is an evolutionary process by which we view people of color and women as ‘value added’ and a mutually beneficial proposition to American business.
“The road to shared economic security travels through two-way trade, where all are included, and none are left in the margins of the marketplace. Industry by industry, the quantifiable gaps in opportunity and in access to capital for people of color-owned businesses define our agenda.
“Just as America did not realize how good professional sports could be until athletes of all colors could play, American business will not maximize its growth potential until all businesses have an equal opportunity to compete on an even playing field, where the rules are public and the goals are clear.
That is the goal of the Wall Street Project.” The Wall Street Project uses Operation Breadbasket’s model of research, education, negotiation, and reconciliation to achieve its mission to promote inclusion, opportunity and economic growth by encouraging public and private industries to:
• Provide more business opportunities for minority and women-owned companies on Wall Street and throughout the financial services industry
• Improve hiring, promotion and retention practices
• Name more minorities to corporate boards
• Allocate more capital to minority companies
• Promote intra-trade relationships among diverse businesses
• Increase funding for educational scholarships, and voter registration education
• Increase financial literacy in minority and/or underserved communities through the work of the One Thousand Churches Connected program
“Those who have been locked out from access to opportunity want the same from Corporate America that Corporate America wants from U.S. and foreign markets – balance of trade, open trade, and uninhibited access. If Corporate America could see the vast potential within our underserved minority communities, would Wall Street provide access to opportunities for economic growth and stability?”
-Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.