Jaha Cummings shares how the Blanchard House Institute is transforming overlooked towns into cultural and economic hubs.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Jaha Cummings, Founder of the Blanchard House Institute, on how his work blends economic revitalization, cultural preservation, and storytelling. Through initiatives like the American Dream Fund and Storyboard USA, Jaha empowers underinvested communities to reclaim their history and reshape their futures.
About Blanchard House Institute
Blanchard House Institute (BHI) supports 250+ underinvested and rural communities impacted by Urban Renewal and historic neglect to address the gap where the American Dream has remained unfulfilled.
As an extension of the Blanchard House Museum, a charter member of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, BHI’s signature programs are at the nexus of civic engagement, entrepreneurship, and the preservation of heritage and culture
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on BR Guest to apply. All right, so did I have Jaha Cummings on the line and he’s a founder of a Blanchard House Institute.
Jaha, welcome to the show. Very good to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. Alright, so we got a lot to talk about today. So I want to, we’re gonna get into the American Dream Fund and storyboard USA. So I guess um, just to get us started here, maybe let’s go back a bit. I I see the title founder um, Blanchard House Institute.
So talk to me a little bit more about the institute and, its founding. I. So we are a national public, private philanthropic partnership that drives economic revitalization and heritage tourism in 250 plus under invested rural communities in honor of the country’s coming two 50th. So we are an extension of the Blanc House Museum, visiting Museum.
My family established in Punta Goda, Florida about 21 years ago. And we’re, um. a charter member of Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. And I had served on city council three terms and upon retiring with my co-founder, we decided to look what could we do to expand the mission of the museum in a way that we can impact on revitalizing community.
So we said, let’s look at taking best practices in economic revitalization using an asset-based community development model. Promoting heritage tourism and then taking a bipartisan approach of working with local elected officials. And that turned into basically creating national economic and cultural trails.
Which initially started out just in communities that had basically had thrived before urban renewal. And so that’s kind of where the impetus was, these are communities that had a golden age and, initially um, we had, we call a Black Wall Street trail. This turned into five more trails. You know, we have the Seminole More Freedom Trail, which traces, you know, basically the path of the Seminoles out of Florida to.
Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico working with the National Trust for certain preservation with the hundredth anniversary Route six six. We’ve created an Asian American Heritage Trail, which basically takes you through the. Asian experience in the South. A lot of people don’t know that the you know, the Filipino community actually first, started in, New Orleans.
And we take basically a lot of the, Chinese, the China towns. In the Mississippi Delta basically starting Memphis down where we’re starting from next year. Hispanic American Heritage Corridor in Florida. And then we also do work in the African diaspora, multiple projects as well.
Hmm. Could you maybe define, ’cause this is not everybody, the, that the concept of heritage tourism. Could you define that a little bit and provide some clarity? ’cause I don’t wanna assume everybody caught that. Alright, so heritage tourism is basically looking at areas that actually have. I’d say basically using the history of an area to do two things twofold.
On one hand it’s causing a internal renewal in terms of realizing really the, the brilliance and vibrancy of really just the real worth of a community and. we help bring the history of the community to the surface. We also, from the standpoint, the literary side, we also, we have something we call a book of values in front of order.
We created one was basically told the stories of basically people who, who contributed to creating this golden age. So we basically have stories of heroes and sheroes of the community taking a stark document, let’s say, from the 1880s into the 1960s, and basically telling these stories and. Creating a and making it basically say a eight to 13 kind of age type book so that younger people are able to connect.
Mm-hmm. Basically you have to ask older people about these. With that kind of bring to the surface the history, and then work with the local state national tourism boards to really help. Bring this to light. and with that, we’re also partnering with Google Arts and Culture. And so one of it is also being able to provide that platform.
And, and this actually, I guess this idea really came for, I had a mentor Burton Pinco, he’s now passed, he’s from Guam and he was of Chinese descent. Who went to University of Alabama at the time of James Meredith and being a Chinese descent, he was able to navigate like all communities. He wasn’t kind of in the black or white box.
And so with that, upon graduation, he went to northern Alabama and saw that these small towns had pretty much history in cultural gold, but they were small towns whose economies were depressed because that kind wasn’t realized. So what he, so he did was he created a trail which literally became the Northern Alabama tourism district.
It was so successful that he was recognized nationally and then brought back the Guam. We established tourism for Japanese and Korean markets, and so that in talking with him, he was a mentor for me when I was in Micronesia, telling me how he created tourism. And so this has really been a concept that if we can really bring to light, these gyms and these communities and then make it part of a national trail, we’re actually able to kind of create a scalability aspect to them. Mm-hmm. And, and you know, in the same way that say Kentucky has a bourbon trail, you know, you would go to places you probably wouldn’t think of going to, but you’re going to it because on a trail to the same degree.
And our first, I’d say success with this was working with there’s a. He’s now retired. He’s in Oklahoma. He, a senator there, state Senator Kevin Matthews. We met with him and working with him, we shared ideas with him and we took some legislation in Florida, shared it with him, and he actually crafted something called the Oklahoma Civil Rights Trail, and he got this passed.
Both Unanimously, both on the House and Senate side in the state of Oklahoma. And what it did was it celebrated 13 remaining black towns and Native American communities and created this trail. And, and actually the state of Oklahoma also provided $1.5 million initial capital and created the funding vehicle to do this.
And the purpose of it was. Creating this trail, it then makes it into a viable tourist destination, which then becomes investible. So now they have brought back, et cetera. And so what it really is really just bringing to light really the historic value and, and what’s special about these communities and helping them be able to, to take advantage of that and monetize that.
And with that to be able to, create basically, businesses for local people to be able to, for them all, you know, really to benefit from celebration of their heritage and culture. What an amazing story, and thank you for that explanation. ’cause I’ve heard of, part of this, but I didn’t know like, everything behind the scenes that it takes to make this happen, right?
Like as, a tourist myself, I’m like, I just go and enjoy sometimes and learning and I’m, I’m definitely the type of person that likes to learn history and likes that, that other side of tourism, other than maybe just laying on the beach, I’m not that’s just my style. So I love that. This is great.
This is great. I’m not against laying on the beach though. It’s all against. Oh, no. But there’s a difference between a tourist and a traveler. YY yeah. There’s, there’s a difference. Yes. Well I want to, let’s switch it up a bit here. Let’s get into the American Dream Fund. So maybe start with just explaining what it is and, and some of the goals.
Alright, so with the American Dream Fund, it is, I’d say, a civic minded, catalytic platform designed to turn this national commemoration into an enduring economic opportunity. It supports a growing portfolio of heritage based initiatives to strengthen local economies. Elevate overlook stories and renew public confidence in the communities where the American dream has remained unfulfilled.
And so what we do is it’s a mixed capital platform built to scale community-led initiatives that drive long-term economic, cultural and tive renewal. So when we go to oh, and also I would say. the fund compliments traditional philanthropy by supporting like a portfolio of sub funds, like each structure to attract long-term investment and strategic sectors with national relevance and local impact.
And so it’s really to build. So durable infrastructure around community led innovation through public private partnerships. So, for example, one of the ones we really um, highlight is the storyboard, USA. What this is it’s is basically reclaiming US leadership and global storytelling by reshoring productions, rebuilding creative infrastructure, and supporting the establishment of a federal film office within the Department of Congress.
And so with this Louisiana, Lebanon Orleans was actually where the film industry began. And, we are invited to work with the community there. And we, last year we had a, commitment to action through with Clin Global Initiative to create the Louisiana Heritage Tourism Corridor. And what this was is we, what we do in every community, we do economic studies to find what is the economic driver.
And in the case of Louisiana. Storytelling cultural heritage really is their goal. And so if that maximize, that’s just the, I mean, the super job creator. So in this case, we looked at this and so we worked to support film Louisiana and in, in, you know, helping them with their marketing. And, and what they were able to do last year was actually to protect the thumb credits and also working with film USA, so, so basically in our efforts, it’s to really support.
The conditions so that there can be a reshoring of the film industry and particularly really, really working strongly with Louisiana because you are looking at the people, the culture, the music, the environment all and, and then even architecture. They have all this just, they’re actually the fourth biggest film production place in the United States.
People don’t know that, but it’s, so our goal really is. Supporting film, so it can be that driver. Also this also we also have a publishing arm and we, we participate in international film festivals like for a third year. We were at Con we’re going to Venice in August. And at Con, we actually for the second time actually had some titles that or jury.
And so what we do, we focus on books. That can be adapted into film or game. And in this case, we’re just looked at leveraging this. And so we actually work with film USA, this and, and, and also Georgia Entertainment to really help promote this idea. So, kind of getting back to this, it’s creating for storyboard, USA, it’s actually driving support of reshoring, the film industry.
And so what we do is we view philanthropy as. I guess catalytic capital as opposed to necessarily supporting things. You know, oftentimes people think of philanthropy as carrying a whole initiative. What we say is that any initiative should be able to be financially sustainable. So what, philanthropy really can be is either first loss or.
That initial bit that gets it going in the same way that like a stadium is not built just for private money. There’ll be some public and philanthropic money involved because it does serve a, a greater social cause as well. In this case, we look to philanthropy to be capital to help start the process, but then we also then assist with finding the, the public and private partners to, to make a sustainable capital stack.
and so. So say our areas of focus, we’ll say in terms of the fund, we’re looking at storyboard USA, which is productions. We have heritage and tourism and cultural preservation. That’s working directly with communities and community led projects to advance civic pride, regional revitalization, place space, industry growth.
We have workforce housing. This is closing housing gaps in culturally significant areas to scalable American made infrastructure that supports workforce resilience in local economies. We have youth and public knowledge. This is preparing the next generation with tools for storytelling, digital authorship and civic leadership, grounded in heritage and built for an Asia driven future.
And then we have global heritage and civic infrastructure advancing US leadership and heritage and diplomacy and digital preservation through cross continental partnerships. Say from Appalachia to Angola. Uh, We actually were just at UNESCO’s. World Heritage Conference in Paris just, a few days ago.
Mm-hmm. And, you know, really representing really bringing our goal there is to get more US sites recognized as World Heritage sites because we see as a, talking about heritage tourism, if we’re actually able to help sites become national landmarks, that then makes it eligible for becoming more heritage sites and becoming more heritage sites, we’re able to then provide a consistent stream of tourism that then local businesses can then build around.
So that’s ultimately the goal is, is to strengthen local economies through making them kind of have a, a local, national, international significance. Yeah. No, that’s great. Jaha. And I’m looking at the theme of your work, whether it’s through stories, through heritage what do you enjoy most about what you do?
And like all of these projects, there’s some, there’s some themes that kind of go through them all, but what do you enjoy most about this work? I would say it’s having individuals, families, and communities reach their full creative potential. There’s nothing more beautiful to me than seeing people shine.
and what I learned from my role from when I was elected official was that our job is to create the conditions for people to thrive. And so that’s really what this is, is that however I can do with sharing of. My network and any connections I have, how can we create the conditions for people to thrive?
that’s really ultimately what it is. That’s amazing. well Jaha, you know, this has been great having you on the show today and learning more about your work. How can people get involved? How can they connect um, whether it’s at Blanchard House Institute or in your other projects, like how do people follow you?
So we have blanchard house institute.org and that’s, that’s B-A-L-C-H-A-R-D, house institute.org. Also, I’m on LinkedIn. My name is, is Jha Cummings. I’m the only one. Mm-hmm. And, and then also my, my email address is this is Jaha, which is JAHA. At Blanchard house institute.org. And I guess one thing I’ll also follow up, just kind of how it is all tied together.
I’m also investment banker with denial security. So we’re actually able to assist fully with being able to, raise the mixed capital stack, especially when it comes to impact investing, et cetera. So we are, you know, so with, within our organization, we have our public and private side, just like we promote there that we, we have our philanthropic actions and we also are able to actually also go to the market to assist you know, in bringing this to reality.
Amazing. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes so you can just click on them, head on over, and check out the work that Jaha is doing. And for everybody watching as well, this is part of our Milken Global conference series where we bring to you and highlight the best of attendees, participants and those that have participated in the conferences.
Throughout the years. So Jaha I can’t, can’t let you off the line until I ask you, so how was conference this year? I was there. I know we didn’t meet in person, but how was the conference this year? Spectacular as always. I think it’s one of the best conferences like in the world. And yeah. What plug also wanna share is that we are, we’re we’re part of Milken 10,000 Communities initiative and that’s a database that provides nonprofits and government agencies with.
Real time intelligence on public and philanthropic funding that’s available to them and just we’re, it’s a true honor to work with them because we’re actually able to provide really tangible support to all the community led initiatives that we’re working in through, you know, working with Milken.
Amazing. And for everybody watching we’re definitely gonna add this on the website in our Milken Global conference series of interviews. And uh, speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day, bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And jha, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you so much. It’s truly a pleasure. It Wonderful meeting you and speaking with you.
