Who We Are

Mission Statement:  The Greenlining Institute’s mission is to empower communities of color and other disadvantaged groups through multi-ethnic economic and leadership development, civil rights and anti-redlining activities.

Greenlining Definition:  The business practice of investing energy, products and services in low-income, minority and disabled communities to increase profits and expand the economic pie.

Redlining:  The discriminatory and unprofitable practice of avoiding or refusing investment in inner-city and minority neighborhoods and the overcharging of services and products to these communities.

The Greenlining Institute works to improve the quality of life for low-income and minority communities. The institute emerged form the Greenlining Coalition, perhaps the oldest coalition of African American, Asian American/Pacific Islander, and Latino community leaders organized around a common purpose. With the formal founding of the Institute in 1993, Greenlining set out to create an antidote to redlining, the illegal yet common practice of denying, limiting, or overcharging for financial services and products to low-income and minority communities.

Since 1993, the Greenlining Institute has blossomed into a major policy player throughout California and the nation. In partnership with a dynamic multi-ethnic coalition of diverse organizations, the Institute has successfully connected private enterprise and community organizations in innovative partnerships, garnering over $2.4 trillion dollars in investments into traditionally underserved areas.

Employing a holistic approach to dilemmas facing low-income and minority communities, we work to guarantee that our communities are “at” rather that “on” the tables of policymaking. Overall, Greenlining believes fundamentally in the capacity of low-income and minority communities to determine their own destinies through real investment, leadership development, coalition building, and tenacious struggle for justice. The ultimate goal of the institute is to increase low-income and minority participation in policy-making, resulting in equitable policies that will improve the quality of life for all communities in California and nationwide.