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Closing the funding gap
Black founders generate $150 billion in revenue annually. The majority start their businesses with just $35,000 in capital. The $424.7 billion in venture funding that has been dispersed since 2009? Less than 1% went to Black founders. Things don’t look much differently when it comes to philanthropic funding. Despite making up nearly 10 percent of nonprofit leadership in the United States, Black and Latine nonprofit leaders receive less than 4 percent of total philanthropic funding. In order to close the funding gap for Black entrepreneurs, organizations such as The Highland Project are supporting Black founders by providing them with capital, and addressing the systemic underpinnings that prevent them from being able to generate wealth in the first place.
Client Spotlight: Victory College Prep
“Whenever an organization is seeking meaningful progress on this kind of scale, it can be difficult to assess where to begin, how to best yield results, or sustain genuine momentum. Classifying action steps helped us understand how to being our work successfully and allowed us to muster patience and discipline for the efforts that will (understandably) be longer in leading us to our desired outcomes.”
Moving From Research to Action
Last month, twelve NOLA C.A.R.E.S. PAResearchers showcased their findings, answered questions, and celebrated their accomplishments with the family, friends, coworkers, community members and partners who came to support and learn from their work. As a part of their cohort experience, researchers gained training and confidence in research practices, and came to recognize and explore the wealth of knowledge, experience and understanding present in their own lives and the lives of others in her community.
Equity at the Forefront: Our Paid Parental Leave Policy
Beloved Community has established a precedent for prioritizing self- and community-care by offering unlimited PTO and an annual sabbatical to our team. When we realized that a number of our employees welcoming children into their family or needing to take extended personal or medical leave were not covered under our current Flexible PTO Policy nor the National FMLA, we developed a specific Family Leave Policy to ensure every employee has the space and time to care for themselves and family members or welcome children and return to work successfully.
The Awa Equity Audit
Beloved Community’s Equity Audit allows organizations to assess equity within their institutional practices and identify how they are performing on diversity, equity, and inclusion to help prioritize the areas that will result in measurable systemic change. The Awa Equity Audit is designed to serve all kinds of organizations - from non-profits, corporations & companies to K-12 schools, colleges & universities, and even public agencies and municipalities. The Equity Audit can be used for entire organizations and even single departments, teams, or programs.
Beloved Community Equity at Work Program Expands
As one of 17 awardees selected, New Mexico State University will lead a team to establish an Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center in the region to help underserved and overburdened communities with environmental justice concerns remove barriers and improve accessibility to federal grant application systems. The project plans to expand on Beloved Community’s Equity at Work Communities of Practice program. Beloved will lead the integration and bring together leadership teams from 20 to 30 organizations throughout the region. Participants will develop both interpersonal and institutional capacities to disrupt systemic racism and discrimination that manifests within their organization and its operations.
Are you encouraging this toxic behavior at work?
Code-switching has become a way for people to navigate uncomfortable places where their truest, most authentic selves have not been accepted by mainstream society, particularly in work environments. Guest author Monti Hill (she/her) shares her recommendations for how to interrogate professionalism in the workplace and center inclusion and belonging in your policies and practices.
Mapping Your Personal Equity Journey
The Equity Lens Map is an individual self-assessment tool designed to help organizations build effective, differentiated talent practices for team members at every level of the organization in order to advance diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI). The Equity Lens Map was developed to support individuals on their equity leadership journey by assessing levels of self-awareness, bias, allyship, internalized oppression, and fatigue. The Equity Lens Map provides trend data that allows organizational leaders to reinforce their institutional equity work plan with targeted supports for developing talented leaders throughout the organization.
Inside the Beloved Community IRB
The Beloved Community IRB is one of less than two dozen IRBs based at nonprofits in the US. We are one of even fewer IRBs housed at a Black womxn led nonprofit. This is important because the vast majority of IRBs are based at university and college campuses and research centers; by launching an IRB at Beloved Community, we disrupt existing systems of knowledge production and research approval. Under FDA regulations, an Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a group formally designated to review and monitor research involving ‘human subjects’. In accordance with FDA regulations, an IRB has the authority to approve, require modifications in (to secure approval), or disapprove research.
Breaking down the glass cliff
Highland Leader and founder of Beloved Community Rhonda Broussard shares the challenges of the “glass cliff”—when leaders, namely Black women, are moved into roles in times of chaos or crisis, and not equipped with adequate resources, staff, training, or support—and it’s at the cost of our mental and physical well-being. Read what else Gabrielle Wyatt, founder of the Highland Project, has to say about how can companies prioritize women who have been intentionally marginalized by institutions and systems.