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The Guild Team laughing and smiling with each other. From left to right: Antariksh, Mary Jane, Avery, Dani, Zach and Nikishka

We’re re-defining how business is done, how real estate is developed, and how community is built.

Community wealth building strategies increase asset ownership, anchor jobs locally and ensure local economic resilience.

We take a systems approach to creating sustainable communities by addressing the root causes of economic inequality.



What we do

Development

We build affordable mixed-use spaces for long-term residents, entrepreneurs, artists and activists. We also partner with other community-based developers and offer technical assistance and consulting services to develop projects through a community wealth-building lens.

Ecosystem Organizing

We partner with other community-based organizations to transform the economic and political landscape, with the goal of building ‘solidarity economies’ with justice and equity-centered institutions.

Integrated Capital Fund

Our fund, called Groundcover, uses non-extractive capital to invest in scaling up cooperative models that create a pathway for ownership for Black and other communities of color.

Entrepreneurship & Real Estate Programming

Our programs support entrepreneurs of color looking to build sustainable wealth for their communities via structures like worker-owned cooperatives. We also work to help entrepreneurs acquire commercial real estate, with a focus on helping Black-owned businesses retain ownership in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Community Ownership

We create community-owned real estate models. Features include permanent affordability of housing, resident control, collective decision-making, and taking housing off the speculative market.

Our community ownership models

We believe in a future rooted in democratic collectivism and the holistic wellbeing of Black and Brown communities. In these thriving neighborhoods, residents can depend on each other, foster genuine relationships, and feel safe and secure. To build toward this world, The Guild develops and trains residents on community-owned real estate models that allow marginalized communities to collectively govern their neighborhoods as a pathway to building local power and self-determination. We believe that housing should be a human right, and not something to be bought and sold for the highest price, only enriching those with access to capital. In this way, community wealth remains where it belongs — circulated within communities rather than concentrated in the hands of a few investors.

To create a future where neighborhood residents can enjoy their communities without fear of displacement, The Guild develops residential and commercial real estate projects that are owned by the working-class Black and Brown residents of the communities where they are located. Two models that we are exploring to meet this goal are our Community Stewardship Trust (CST) and The People’s Land Trust (PCLT).