New Orleans’ Next 100 Years

Twenty years after Katrina, here's how we should be investing in a great American city

By Shawna Young

Hurricane Katrina showed the world what happens when communities are abandoned —neglected not by accident, but by the design of an exclusionary system. Twenty years later, the question is whether we will choose to build a different future or resign ourselves to repeating the designs of the past.

New Orleans has always shaped America: from Creole cuisine to jazz to innovative education models. Today it is one of the most entrepreneurial metros in the country; from 2023-2025, the rate of people starting new businesses was “34 percent above the national rate and 29 percent above the average of the other 49 largest U.S. metros.” Founders are creating billion-dollar exits, generating jobs, and revitalizing neighborhoods. Yet while capital flows along the coasts of Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York, too many investors continue to ignore innovation in the Gulf South.

For generations, the creativity and resilience of Black New Orleanians, in particular, has anchored the city’s culture and economy. After Katrina, that legacy of ingenuity was carried forward by those who refused to let disaster erase what they had built. The late Leah Chase, the “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” rebuilt famed restaurant Dooky Chase’s after Katrina destroyed it. Melanie Richardson, Co-Founder of Training Grounds, is empowering families, parents, and early childhood educators with the skills they need to nurture healthy children. And Jonathan Johnson, Founder of Rooted School, is reimagining how schools can play a pivotal role in providing students with personal pathways to financial freedom. These endeavors, among many others, show how Black New Orleanians are sustaining culture, rebuilding communities, and proving that legacy can endure even the fiercest storm.

That said, resilience alone should not have to be the business model. Too often, capital still bypasses Black New Orleanians and under-resourced founders—the very people who rebuild neighborhoods and sustain culture. And the national political climate is making this worse. Across the country, equity-focused programs designed to expand opportunity for underestimated entrepreneurs are being dismantled. The same forces that ended affirmative action are now targeting economic pathways meant to correct historic exclusion.

How do we move forward? When I became the CEO of Camelback Ventures, founded ten years after Katrina with the mission of bridging the gaps in entrepreneurial funding and support that Katrina laid bare, I committed to a shift in mindset and a series of action steps all investors can, and should, follow:

• Capital as justice. Funding under-resourced founders is not charity—it is the clearest act of justice, ensuring those who sustain communities are not excluded from prosperity. Investors can take action by committing to direct capital into under-resourced communities, as the Greater New Orleans Funders Network has done. Funders can also tie their dollars to accountability—measuring not just returns, but how those investments expand ownership, jobs, and stability for local residents.

• Ecosystems, not just entities. Investment must build mentorship networks, procurement pipelines alongside businesses. Readers can support by backing incubators, accelerators, and shared spaces that provide founders with community and infrastructure, not just checks. They can also advocate for policies that lean into creating lasting market opportunities rather than one-off support for under-resourced businesses.

• Think in centuries, not decades. Anchor wealth in communities for the next 100 years, not the next earnings report. Funders and institutions can commit long-term investments—staying with entrepreneurs through cycles rather than pulling back when markets tighten. Right now, it can feel difficult to even plan a cohesive strategy for the next 10 days, but that is exactly why a long-term vision matters most. They can also prioritize investments that build community anchors like schools, housing, and small business corridors, laying foundations that last long after the initial investment is made.

Over the last decade, Camelback has invested $9-million plus in hundreds of visionaries—founders who are building companies, nonprofits, and schools that anchor their communities. However, this work has never been ours alone. We are one piece of a larger movement, and the legacy we build in New Orleans must be shared, expansive, and generational. True collective prosperity will require the efforts of funders, policymakers, universities, cultural leaders, and entrepreneurs themselves.

The next 100 years start now. And if we invest with intention, New Orleans can show the world that justice and prosperity are not opposites—they are inseparable.

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Shawna Young is the CEO of Camelback Ventures, a national entrepreneurial accelerator for education and technology ventures, headquartered in New Orleans.