Why We're Here

Right now America is in the middle of a recession, unemployment is as high as it's been in memory, and where the market for unskilled workers is weaker than ever. Even a recovery will leave areas which suffer tremendously. The East End of Richmond has 39% of it's residents living below the poverty line and is home to four enormous housing projects, bastions of entrenched poverty. Southside Virginia has been decimated by unemployment stemming from the collapse of tobacco and its related manufacturing industries; Halifax County has 10% unemployment and Martinsville 17% against Virginia's average of 6%. When we include workers who have given up on finding work, these numbers are estimated at nearly 30%.
 
There's hope though and it’s called Economic Gardening. There's a lot of individuals who have a seed, an idea of something they love which they'd love to grow into a business. But they don't know how. Many have never started a business before and need expert guidance and encouragement. It's a time where folks who have some capital and good credit are having trouble getting a loan, and a lot of these businesses are being dreamed up by people who have neither, and whose ideas aren't quite big enough to get a bank's attention.
 
United Virginia fills that gap, supporting entrepreneurial development through cultivation of place-based economic ecosystems that lift up and sustain. We work with people from the most disadvantaged areas, teaching them how to grow their seed into a business and lending them the capital they need, banding them together into a community that will transform their lives.