Homecoming with a purpose: LaToya Williams-Belfort brings her ‘secret sauce’ to the Bronx Community Foundation

By Janee Bolden

LaToya Williams-Belfort has spent her career building pathways for underserved communities, but stepping into her new leadership role as executive director of the Bronx Community Foundation has even deeper meaning for her as a Bronx resident.

“It felt like coming home,” Williams-Belfort said BLACK BUSINESS. “Throughout my career, I have been very intentional and blessed to do work for communities that I really understood, and then bring people to the table to drive investments and solutions for those communities.”

Williams-Belfort grew up in the Bronx, and long before she knew the language for systems and structures, she understood what it meant to live in them. “Growing up in the Bronx, I quickly came to understand systemic barriers,” she said. “It was very clear to me that my community, my family, were hard-working, God-fearing, family-oriented people, but you would hear terms like ‘we just can’t catch a break’ or ‘we just don’t have access to certain opportunities.’”

Those early observations stuck with her as she went through school, entered the workforce and eventually entered philanthropy. Over time, they crystallized into a framework that would guide her leadership. “I finally landed on this word that has been so important in my life: equality,” she said. “What does it mean to have equal opportunity? Many people think equality means equality. We know these are two completely different things.”

By the time the country reached a turning point following the death of George Floyd in 2020, Williams-Belfort had already worked in philanthropy for years. What changed then was her sense of urgency around solutions. “The country was talking about racism in a way that had never happened in my life,” she said. “But we were all talking about the problems and how we got here. The conversation about solutions was what I really wanted to get to.”

That desire to move from diagnosis to action led her to the nonprofit 15% Pledge, where she became its first executive director. The goal was clear: use the machinery of capitalism to close the opportunity gaps. “When we think about equal opportunity, when we think about building wealth, when we think about the racial wealth gap in this umbrella of capitalism, what the pledge did felt like a license to create scalable pathways for Black entrepreneurs felt like a tangible solution,” she said. “If we could help entrepreneurs gain fair access to the supply chains of multi-billion dollar companies in a sustainable way and truly build prosperity, we are now talking about a more inclusive economy.”

Under her leadership, the organization grew rapidly. “I was there almost five years,” she says. “We took the organization to a $7 million nonprofit, and we were able to scale $14 billion in impact for a community of more than 10,000 Black-owned businesses.” When the pledge was launched, she noted that the community numbered closer to 1,000.

But as proud as she is of that work, Williams-Belfort saw its limits. Sustainable change required not only programs but also a capital strategy. That realization informed her decision to step into her current role at the Bronx Community Foundation, which operates as a funding organization rather than a direct-service nonprofit.

“We don’t run any direct programs,” she said. “It’s a financing organization.” For Williams-Belfort, that distinction creates opportunities. “How do you support communities and nonprofits that are doing the work on the ground, but also thinking about sustainability, capacity building and the technology needed to do the work the right way for the long term?”

The Foundation, she noted, is approaching its second decade. “The foundation has only been around for about ten years,” she says. “They’ve been doing this the right way for a long time. But what’s the next iteration of sustainability, growth and innovation?”

Her answer is rooted in both data and lived experience. One of the biggest challenges she sees is not a lack of talent or commitment in the Bronx, but a persistent narrative problem. “I think there’s so much bias in thinking about what’s possible for the Bronx,” she said. “A lot of people I encounter have an ideology from the 1970s and early 1980s, like the stereotypical ‘Bronx is Burning’ kind of understanding of what the Bronx is.”

She has experienced that bias firsthand. “I went to high school in Manhattan, and I met people, and they said to me, ‘Well, it looks like you’re not from the Bronx,’” Williams-Belfort recalls. “And I’d say, ‘What does that mean?'”

These assumptions, she said, have real consequences. “When we think about investment, philanthropy and resource stimulation, it runs counter to the preconceptions about the Bronx that came out of the 1970s and 1980s,” she said. “And that’s not the landscape right now. I think there’s tremendous opportunity to create pathways for kids, for families and for Bronxites.”

She sees signs of that shift everywhere, from cultural production to political momentum. “The young people in the Bronx are making things happen,” she said. “Even if you look at the recent mayoral elections, Mamdani started his campaign on Fordham Road. I think that’s intentional considering how the momentum is swirling through the neighborhood.”

That momentum aligns with the Foundation’s strategy, which is based on collaboration rather than individual donations. “One of the things I’m really excited about is this expansion of cross-sector collaboration,” said Williams-Belfort. “My secret sauce is to really bring people to the table to work together, to take a collective action approach in ways that they wouldn’t necessarily have seen themselves working together.”

The Bronx, she says, is uniquely positioned for that model. “Because of the Bronx’s history of music, art and activism, I think it’s poised to continue working that way,” she said. “How do we bring together business stakeholders, elected officials, advocates and traditional business leaders, and renaissance the resilience and creativity of the Bronx as we think about who and how we invest?”

However, the need remains great. Williams-Belfort points to the Foundation’s extensive listening process as a core strength. “The foundation has had over a thousand community conversations,” she said. “It’s important to have real data about the need.” Four priority areas emerged from those conversations: digital equality, housing, healthcare and economic stability.

“What we’re doing is thinking about how we can build out our participatory grant strategy to meet those needs in a very systematic, systemic way,” she said. Just as important is how the money moves. “Not just providing grants, but thinking about capacity building, sustainability and how we work as a collective action unit.”

She also focuses on trust-based philanthropy and long-term commitments. “Two-year grants, three-year grants,” she said. “Being able to get that long lead of support to really go the extra mile in addressing some of these very deep system-level challenges.”

Although she has only been in the role for a few weeks, one moment already confirmed that Williams-Belfort is in the right place. “I had my full-day in-person board meeting in the fourth quarter,” she said. “It was a day where we had to roll up our sleeves. We asked tough questions. We talked about participatory grants, sustainability and what the next ten years look like. We invested $15 million. How do we get to $50 million?” She left exhausted and energetic. “I called my mentors and my village and said, ‘I had a great day and I think this is going to be really great.’”

What grounds her, she said, is both experience and family. “There’s the hat,” she said, referring to decades of nonprofit leadership. “But at the heart of it are my two sons, both born in the Bronx.” She wants the future she builds to be tangible for them. “I want them and young people like them to have equal opportunities, to create a life that is joyful and allows them to thrive.”

Looking five years ahead, success is measurable and deeply human. “It’s all in the data, it’s all in the numbers,” Williams-Belfort said. “If we can reach the $25 million mark, if we can reach 50,000 to 100,000 Bronxites, I would consider it a job well done.” But just as important is the story that people tell about the municipality. “If we can debunk this idea of ​​the ‘Bronx is Burning’ and reframe that narrative toward the Bronx as a place of collective action, community power and investment, then we are doing the right things.”

For Williams-Belfort the circle has come full circle. The child who once heard her community labeled wanting now leads an effort to prove otherwise with strategy, capital and an unwavering belief that the future of the Bronx can be determined by opportunity, not stereotypes.

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