When an entrepreneur of color begins the groundwork for a new business, what help is there to lift them up? At our July 15 Newsroom 515 event, four panelists described how these entrepreneurs face barriers to funding and the leadership table while building their own network of community support. 

“How are we able to encourage and inspire those who may ultimately uplift their community by pursuing something that their community doesn’t have any connectivity to?” asked panelist Pernell Cezar Jr., co-founder of BLK & Bold. 

Free access to the recording of the full panel is available online. 

Here are a few notes brought by our panelists: Nancy Mwirotsi, tech entrepreneur and Pi515 founder; Lori Hackney, economic development specialist for the Iowa District of the U.S. Small Business Administration; John Martin, owner of TeamStrong Inc.; and Pernell Cezar Jr., co-founder of BLK & Bold. Dwana Bradley, editor-in-chief of The Urban Experience Magazine, joined as guest moderator. 

Mwirotsi
“Tokenism in funding — you see one person of color, and that’s who you fund. That’s who everybody else funds, and nobody is going outside of that and saying, ‘Maybe I could fund four or five other ideas from other people of color.’ … I’m not saying they’re not doing great work, I’m saying we all need to be included because we’re all doing different things. 

“Especially female founders; female founders are rarely funded, and that’s another issue that we rarely talk about — even our Latino brothers and Asian friends. Funding is very challenging.”  

Cezar
“I’ve worked with many Black-owned package goods brands now … and I was told by a natural beauty brand that in a meeting [they heard], ‘What do we want to do with the hip-hop brand?’ The brand has nothing to do with hip-hop, but the perception of who was represented in the Black community created an immediate barrier to the opportunity of sitting at the table.

“It’s not just good enough to have the resources for people to identify you. It [means] better education for the overall community, because that may encourage those people that have that idea but don’t know if they have support or someone to call to help them get started.” 

Hackney
“I’ve talked to a lot of women-owned businesses where they’ve got the double-edged sword. They’ve got the gender bias and they’ve got the color bias. … There’s a disconnect between the banking relationships where we’ve got to figure out, how can we strengthen them to bring them all to the table to assist more minorities? 

“Financial literacy is a piece of it, but the lending community has to step up as well.”

Martin
“It almost seems to be that a lot of these resources are about who you know. … Especially in a smaller community as Des Moines and the other cities that we work in, you sit down with some of the entrepreneurs of color and they don’t know any names that are in positions that carry the funding.

“A lot of people are just not ready to establish their business. … We’re finding a lot of people need that basic [business] knowledge. Before we even provide marketing, we’re providing basic business know-how.” 

Resources Mentioned:
Iowa Targeted Small Business Program
Iowa Center for Economic Success
Founder Gym
U.S. Small Business Administration – Small Business Resource Guide
Iowa Small Business Development Centers
Women’s Business Center
Office of Veterans’ Business Development
Black Iowa Business Directory