Majora Carter shows how brain drain cripples low-status communities and maps out a development strategy focused on talent retention to help them break out of economic stagnation. How can we solve the problem of persistent poverty in low-status communities? Majora Carter argues that these areas need a talent-retention strategy, just like the ones companies have. Retaining homegrown talent is a critical part of creating a strong local economy that can resist gentrification.

This document is designed to be used as a menu of tools to integrate racial equity into your existing practices. The tools in this document are organized by Government Alliance on Race and Equity's "Normalize, Organize, Operationalize" framework from GARE and Race Forward's "Actions to Advance Racial Equity". We recognize that change can take time, and often needs to be incremental. We also recognize that we need to operate with a sense of urgency and start somewhere. Each tool in this document can be applied to ongoing work in government agencies; we all need to self-reflect, cultivate our workforce, develop communication skills, improve quality of services, and hire or engage with HR. If we cannot apply a racial equity lens in these everyday activities, when do we start prioritizing racial equity? This work starts here, and it starts now.