Staff Reports
A Nashville man wants to serve philanthropists and corporate responsibility department directors so disenfranchised people can build generational wealth and benefit from American capitalism.
“My innovation solves the multi-generation poverty challenge without using taxes or debt,” Wacinque AK BeMende said.
And, it costs less than other programs to meet goals set by the federal government to counteract red-lining, he said.
BeMende is originally from North Nashville. He served 40 years in the military, starting with the U.S. Marine Corps. He’s been a military reservist. He served a year with AmeriCorps and, closer to home, he’s a member of the Maplewood High School Class of 1976.
More recently, he’s a Veteran in Residence at a business incubator in Nashville that provides co-working space, a local community of like-minded people, a national business network, and targeted support to grow his business. It’s called KaizenRhino Solutions International Consultancy. Veterans in Residence is a partnership of WeWork, a real estate company providing workspace for start-up businesses, and Bunker Labs, a Chicago-based non-profit organization helping veterans become entrepreneurs.
With his own life experience, research and a solutions-oriented mind, BeMende saw opportunity through continued service to others with education and connections.
BeMende would create generational wealth for African Americans by re-channeling money that’s spent other ways.
Big businesses face federal corporate responsibility requirements because of unfair business practices. For example, mortgage lenders denied African-Americans loans by drawing on a map red lines around Black neighborhoods and denying loans to people who live there. It might be described as white collar Jim Crow. As a result of an historic federal decision against red lining, banks must have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programs. They spend some of the bank’s profits on environmental or health and safety programs to benefit residents affected by red-lining.
BeMende substantiated independent observations on CSR programs, adding; businesses spend a great deal of money to comply with the federal requirement. However, he agreed, many of the CSR programs are little more than lessons on how to: qualify for a mortgage; get that bank’s brand of checking, savings, and credit or debit card accounts; and, how to write and follow a household budget.
BeMende proposes to redirect bank spending on seminars into accounts opened by area residents.
That way, disenfranchised people and their heirs would gain generational wealth.
Re-channeling CSR money, plus donations from billionaires interested in fostering a better society, BeMende’s non-profit organization would be a valve on the flow of money into corporate stock purchases accomplished without a broker. No broker is needed, BeMende says. If a stock buyer makes the purchase directly from the corporation, they can maintain a record of that ownership with the corporation’s transfer agent, he said.
Another lesson would be about dividend-paying corporate stock that shares part of the company’s profit with its owners, the stockholders. Dividend payments would be a new revenue stream for victims of systemic racism. The value of the stock would be generational wealth, eventually available to heirs.
How clients are included wasn’t revealed. Where and when seminars are conducted hasn’t been announced.
BeMende’s working on a schedule toward Juneteenth.