Central Brooklyn Partnership
Mark Winston Griffith, Co-Founder and Executive Director
Mark Winston Griffith is the found director of the Central Brooklyn Partnership (The Partnership), a nonprofit organization that builds community-owned financial cooperatives, conducts research and advocacy on behalf of community reinvestment, develops youth leaderships and promotes financial literacy among local residents. The Partnership’s purpose is to revitalize Central Brooklyn by building the capacity of residents to become economically independent and powerful.
Among The Partnership’s program is the Youth Empowerment Program, a financial literacy and leadership development vehicle that combines analysis of local economy, entrepreneurship and community organizing to train young people as economic justice crusaders. Young people meet on a regular basis to plan actions and entrepreneurial events – such as an annual Youth Summit – to dispel the myth of Black and Latino/a youth as passive consumers and to encourage them to re-envision themselves as trend setters and leaders. The Partnership combines micro enterprise approaches with economic justice and advocacy strategies through the Sister lending Circle, which promote self-reliance and cooperative enterprise among women who receive public assistance. The Partnership’s Center for Financial Education and justice is building an economic power movement through community organizing and a membership constituency. Through community involvement, The Partnership is building the capacity of local people to create economic change.