Phil Knight ponied up $400 million to help historically Black areas of Portland. Meet the woman investing it.

I wrote a story for Fast Co. about Rukaiyah Adams, CEO of the new 1803 Fund. 

When Rukaiyah Adams took the podium at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, two weeks ago to announce Phil and Penny Knight’s $400 million donation to the 1803 Fund her voice wavered with emotion. It’s understandable why: Thanks to the contributions of the Nike founder and his wife, the scale of the assets she’ll be managing as chair of the newly formed fund will be game-changing for Portland’s Black community, which her family has been a part of for four generations.

“At $400 million, I’ll be managing almost more than all Black women in venture capital,” Adams tells me by phone a week later. “I don’t think there’s a Black woman who has ever raised more than a few million dollars for a historically Black community.”

Rukaiyah Adams is the CEO of the 1803 Fund

The 1803 Fund, a public benefit nonprofit, is dedicated to rebuilding and strengthening the historically Black community in North and Northeast Portland. “It’s like a private equity fund for the people,” Adams says. The fund will have three focus areas: education, culture and belonging, and place. Its first project, Rebuild Albina, is focused on investing in the Black neighborhood that was partially razed in the 1950s to make way for Memorial Coliseum, I-5, and Legacy Emanuel Hospital, displacing a vibrant business district and residential community of bungalows, jazz clubs, corner groceries, and churches.

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