Demetric Duckett

Demetric Duckett

Demetric Duckett is a thought-leader in the domestic impact investing field, accelerating the adoption of innovative financing for the benefit of BIPOC and low-income people and the communities in which they live.

He joined Living Cities in July 2016 and has led various Living Cities programmatic priorities, including the Integration Initiative, Shared Prosperity Partnership (SP2), and the award-winning Catalyst family of funds.

As Managing Director, Demetric oversees Living Cities’ entire strategic capital portfolio, centered on developing and deploying innovative investment vehicles to support the new majority population of this country with a focus on closing racial income and wealth gaps. This includes two award-winning $40 million structured debt funds: the Catalyst Fund and the Blended Catalyst Fund, which are fully deployed and have been selected for ten consecutive years to the global Impact Assets 50, the only open-source, publicly published database of exceptional impact investing fund managers. Demetric also spearheads Living Cities’ research along the capital innovation continuum and leads the vision and fundraising for a third investment vehicle intended to provide better outcomes for BIPOC fund managers and other high-growth constructs for BIPOC entrepreneurs.

Prior to joining Living Cities, Demetric was Senior Vice President of Business Innovation and Resource Development for TruFund Financial Services, a CDFI based in New York City. At TruFund, he directed national business growth strategy, developed and oversaw strategic partnerships, and elaborated new lending programs and product opportunities.

Prior to TruFund, he was Vice President for Capital Access Programs at Carver Federal Savings Bank in Harlem where he developed industry-leading M/W/BE capital access programs, Vice President of Community Development at Bank of America where he worked closely with nonprofit and government entities to promote economic and community development in underserved neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and Vice President and Global Relationship Manager in the Multinational Lending Division at BankBoston where he managed a $2 billion global credit portfolio spanning 16 countries. He began his finance career as a Senior Credit Analyst at PNCBank in Pittsburgh, PA.

Demetric Duckett

Contributing Articles

1863 Ventures Seeks to Close the ‘Friends and Family’ Financing Gap for New Majority Entrepreneurs

Melissa Bradley understands how barriers to capital for entrepreneurs of color hurt our economy and our communities. “There is clearly a cost if we do not invest in diversity,” said Bradley, founder of 1863 Ventures. “We miss out on great returns when we are not inclusive in our investment theses. There are opportunity costs for all of us.” She cites …

Living Cities Selected to the ImpactAssets 50 for 11th Year in a Row

Living Cities’ Capital for the New Majority team is thrilled to announce that Living Cities and the Catalyst Family of Funds have been selected to the ImpactAssets 50 (IA 50) for the eleventh consecutive year and named as an Emeritus Impact Manager for the second time. “Now in its eleventh year, the ImpactAssets 50™ is the most recognized free database of …

Early Lessons Learned on Removing Barriers to Capital for the New Majority

In a few decades, Black, Latinx and other communities of color will make up the majority of the U.S. population. Yet the vast racial wealth gap—starkest between white and Black households—and barriers to accessing capital, launching and growing businesses, and building wealth will persist as these groups of people grow into the “New Majority.” These inequities are not only unjust; …

Living Cities’ Catalyst Family of Funds Selected as an Emeritus Impact Manager for Impact Assets 50 2021

For over a decade, Living Cities’ impact investing work has helped us advance our programmatic strategies while testing innovative approaches to spark and accelerate social change. Our commitment to using capital to create economic security for people of color in U.S. cities is reflected in our impact strategy around closing racial wealth gaps and has led us to gather lessons …

Leveraging Entrepreneurship to Close Racial Wealth Gaps

The latest jobs report shows that our national recovery from the COVID pandemic and its economic impact will be slow and painful for millions of Americans, particularly those who did not have the luxury of wealth before the pandemic. It is increasingly clear that the capitalist system created for our society is not working for everyone, leaving some insulated from …

Turning the Mirror Onto Ourselves

Part of what we’ve learned from looking at the evolution of work in our Integration Initiative cities is that everything ties back to racial equity. The root cause of so many of the inequities we see in cities around the country is racism. As an organization that takes pride in being at the cutting edge of solutions to address the …

Living Cities’ Catalyst Impact Funds Named to ImpactAssets 50 for Ninth Consecutive Year

For the ninth year in a row, Living Cities’ Catalyst Funds have been selected for the ImpactAssets 50, an impact investing showcase featuring fund managers with demonstrated financial capacity and a clear commitment to delivering social impact. For over a decade, Living Cities’ impact investing work has helped us test innovative approaches to spark and accelerate social change. Our commitment …

Is Philanthropy Aligned on the Root Causes of Inequities?

Too often, we assume a partnership between two or more philanthropic institutions represents true “alignment” – even when they are divorced from the people and dynamics on the ground. Furthermore, there is usually a lack of clarity around the intended outcomes and benefits to the community. Philanthropic partners often do not ask this critical question before announcing a new program …

Reimagining Black Wealth: Asking 400 Year Old Questions

As researchers and conveners, we know that addressing the root causes for our country’s racial disparities requires expertise and radical collaboration. On our quest to understand what it takes to achieve more equitable outcomes for all people in a country undergoing rapid demographic shift, Living Cities is not only doubling-down on the use of capital as a driving mechanism of …

Building Inclusive Ecosystems: Reflections from HBCU@SXSW [PODCAST]

How can we build ecosystems that put entrepreneurs of color at the center? At HBCU@SXSW we had a conversation about how inclusive ecosystem building can address the country’s legacy of racial disparities by engaging, investing in, and supporting founders of color. This March, we joined OHUB in Austin for their signature program, HBCU@SXSW, where African American, Pan Asian, and Latinx …

Capital for the New Majority: Reflections from HBCU@SXSW [PODCAST]

What does it take to disrupt barriers to access to capital for people of color and shift who ultimately gets to grow and build wealth? At HBCU@SXSW we had a conversation with ecosystem builders and capital providers about how increasing investments in founders and fund managers of color can help address racial wealth gaps. Opportunity Hub (OHUB) is the leading future …

Skills Development and Talent Placement: Reflections from HBCU@SXSW [PODCAST]

What does it take for companies to operationalize racial equity? At Opportunity Hub’s HBCU@SXSW we chatted with leaders in the tech field about how companies can support black and brown entrepreneurs through skills development and talent placement. Opportunity Hub (OHUB) is the leading future of work, startup entrepreneurship, early stage investment and multi-generational wealth creation for everyone, everywhere. OHUB is …

A Different Philanthropic Approach: Seeding Hope in Regional Inclusive Growth

In my work, I think a lot about Monarch butterflies and how it takes them approximately five generations to migrate from Canada to Mexico. This is what generational work looks like – they fly and carry the mantle for future generations. It is sometimes hard to have hope when confronted every day with the harsh realities of the racial wealth …

Centering Community in Collective Impact

Through a decade of place-based work, we’ve gathered these tools and lessons for bringing community voice into the collective impact model. How can these apply to your own work? Through our place-based work over the last 10 years, Living Cities has been testing and building on the 5 pillars of the Collective Impact approach, as defined by FSG in 2010. Through our …

Rewriting the Rules: Builders and Benefactors’ Influence on the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

To explore all the content from the Builders & Benefactors, scroll down to the end of this piece. Systems change requires the undoing and restructuring of policies, practices, and power structures that have long existed and maintained harmful inequities. These inequities have held people in positions of limited resources, wealth, and agency. Rather than working in temporary fixes that overlook …

Stony the Road We Trod: Commemorating Dr. King

Dr. King’s words about racial and economic justice are as relevant and powerful as ever. With more than 800,000 federal workers out of work due to a government shutdown, communities of color and POC-owned businesses are feeling a negative and disproportionate impact. I’m reminded of Dr. King’s insistence in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail: “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed …

Capital as a Driver of Systemic Change: An Example from Albuquerque

What do wolves and capital innovation have in common? Read this deep dive into Albuquerque’s InnovateABQ project as an example of multiple capital sources driving catalytic change. When the Albuquerque Integration Initiative team approached Living Cities for capital from the Blended Catalyst Fund to fund their InnovateABQ project, a mixed-use facility to serve as an innovation epicenter in the city, we saw a powerful example of …

The Wolf of Social Impact: How We Use Capital as a Driver of Systemic Change

What do gray wolves and capital innovation have in common? Explore the similarities we see in this thinkpiece. In the early 1990s, the wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park nearly 70 years after it was eradicated from the park. The effects of the reintroduction were catalytic, leading to enduring change that shaped Yellowstone’s ecosystem for the better. At Living …

5 Questions for Demetric Duckett, Living Cities’ New Associate Director of Capital Innovation

The newest addition to the Living Cities team answers five questions about his career path, hopes and aspirations. Living Cities is thrilled to welcome Demetric Duckett to our Capital Innovation team! Demetric joined Living Cities in July 2016 as Associate Director of Capital Innovation. He works to blend public, private and philanthropic financial resources in new ways to better meet the …

Contributing Resources

Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund 2023 Annual Report

This report summarizes the eighth year of operations for Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund’s (“BCF” or the “Fund”) activities, from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023 (FY23). We thank you for your support and are excited to explore and share lessons learned as our portfolio continues to mature. The BCF portfolio is a collection of investments that work to …

Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund 2022 Annual Report

This report summarizes Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund’s (“BCF” or the “Fund”) activities during its seventh year of operations, from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022 (FY22). The BCF portfolio is a collection of investments that work to test innovative investment approaches to address the racial wealth gap, shift power within capital systems, and achieve better outcomes for all …

Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund 2021 Annual Report

This report summarizes Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund’s (BCF) activities during its sixth year of operations, from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021 (FY21). During this fiscal year, the BCF Team fully committed the Fund as of March 31, 2021 reaching 26 investments totaling $33.5MM. The latter half of the BCF investments have been aligned with the iterated investment …

Living Cities Catalyst Fund Final Fund Report

History and Context The Living Cities collaborative turns 30 years old in 2021. During its first 15 years, Living Cities’ direct investment of $1 billion in grants and loans was leveraged 16 times over. Our resources helped move neighborhood redevelopment efforts from isolated successes to greater scale, shape federal funding programs, and build homes, stores, schools, and community facilities. In …

A tool towards sustainability in cross-sector initiatives: Mayoral Transition

The purpose of this tool is to provide an organizing structure and tool to guide the planning for the sustainability and scalability of cross-sector initiatives in anticipation of changes in city administrations. At a recent convening of our Initiative Directors, we engaged them in an exploration of the strategic opportunities available to support the long term sustainability of their work …

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