City creates blueprint for CityStart project, gives launch date

JACKSON, Tenn. — The City of Jackson announced its completion of the CityStart Empowerment Blueprint on Wednesday.

The blueprint is a plan for how the city plans to prioritize financial empowerment in the community.

“I think that we were chosen because we can demonstrate a strong partnership between the local government, and our community, and our nonprofit organizations,” said Lauren Kirk, Director of Performance Management for the City of Jackson.

The Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund has donated $52 million to over 100 cities in the country, with Jackson being one of them.

“We look at a lot of the statistics about our community, particularly around financial stability. We recognize that about one in every two people in our community are struggling,” said United Way of West Tennessee President and CEO Matt Marshall.

The city is already working on their next step in helping the community.

“We’re now in the process to launch a Financial Empowerment Center, which is free one-on-one financial counseling,” Kirk said.

The program is set to launch in January of 2022, promoting financial literacy across Madison County and eventually all of West Tennessee.

While Jackson will be one of the smallest markets in the country to receive this grant, that makes the city unique.

“It’s an ongoing, growing trend across the country and across our state. What makes our project potentially unique, we have the capacity to serve a more rural community,” Marshall said.

In the meantime, local banks are offering financial counseling to those that may be interested.

You can view the blueprint here.

You can also read the City of Jackson’s news release here.