 Hi, my name is Cherise Conan and Johnson. Let me first say that I am heartbroken as to what's happened in our country over the last week. I come to you today as a black American, as an entrepreneur, as a mother, and as now a managing partner at Next Street. The mission oriented firm that revolutionizes how our clients provide more equitable inclusive growth through developing strategies for capital services and customers to get to small businesses and entrepreneurs. We are an anti racist organization. Part of the work we've just released a report called the equity capital gap for entrepreneurs of color in Chicago. It has ramifications beyond Chicago. And as I want to share these findings with you, I recognize the moment in time that we are at as a country. This report though was commissioned by our Chicago. The fund created for benefit Chicago, which is an initiative of the john D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust and Calvert impact capital. It's through this work that we try to dismantle structures around systemic racism around racial justice and inequity. And so we are here to agitate for solutions. To solve the problem around capital, specifically equity capital for entrepreneurs of color in Chicago. This report was started before COVID-19 before this civil unrest, but there is no time like the present to share its findings. I want to start with a quote from one of my favorite writers, James Baldwin, who wrote this ironically in 1963. Read just a few words of it and let you sit with it as I share the rest of our findings. James said, everything now we must assume is in our hands. We have no right to assume otherwise. If we, and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks who must like lovers insist on or create the consciousness of others. I want to sit with that as I share some of the findings of our quantitative research and qualitative research for entrepreneurs of color that we did in Chicago. When I say entrepreneurs of color through this research we predominantly looked at and heard the voices of black and Latinx business owners and founders and their journeys about how they've experienced race, but also growing their businesses, not having the right equity capital. So it's important to understand where we are in terms of where these businesses sit within the landscape of the broader Chicago economy. In Cook County, which is where Chicago 6 black and Latinx people make up 57% of the population. However, firms owned by black and Latinx individuals that have employees only make up 9% of all businesses here. And then, most starting Lee, only 6% of revenue is generated from those same black and Latinx businesses. This is a problem, particularly if we had more business owners of color, those individuals would have wealth. Beyond that, these individuals are more likely than their white counterparts to hire from communities and to hire people that look like them spreading the wealth effect to the local and regional economic level. That's really important. And let me first start by defining equity capital. To say equity capital, I mean first cash paid into a business in exchange for an ownership stake in that business that tends to come in a form of family and friends money, founders money, venture capital, private equity. Another form of equity capital, which I define as equity like capital comes in the form of revenue based financing. It's really based on an investor getting a percentage of return based on the revenues of that company. And it has also some repayment options that look like that, but is not debt, because it doesn't hamstring a company in the way that debt does. So, with that capital frame, let's look at what's happening in Chicago, specifically around the equity piece. In Chicago, when we did our analysis, we recognize that black and Latin X owners seek roughly $182 million worth of equity capital. However, they are only receiving $36 million, leaving a gap of $146 million or 80%. That gap for their white counterparts is only 43%. If you compare that even to the national statistics, white owners get 17 times more funding on an equity basis than their colored specifically black and Latin X counterparts. This is appalling. But why is this the case, there are several contributing factors. I want to introduce Danelle Digme, the owner of the Woodlawn, which is based on the south side of Chicago. His experience is rooted in three contributing factors. One, the lack of availability and scale of local equity providers in Chicago. When Danelle was starting his business, he just did not have a lot of options on the equity side. Number two, there's this product mismatch. Danelle needed equity capital, but often investors want business owners of color to receive debt capital. That's really the only kind they think about, especially if you don't have a high growth tech business. So that mismatch is often there. There are not that many revenue-based financing options that really match needs like Danelle's who was starting an incubator on the south side of Chicago. And third, there are limited family and friends options, like many business owners of color. There is less intergenerational wealth for many of the systemic reasons. There's also higher student loan burdens, and the risk tolerance is a lot lower for many communities of color. There are many Danelle's who faced many of these issues, and that was affirmed through our research. So what are we going to do about it? I want to propose four solutions that help us get to systems change or shifting the conditions that are holding a problem in place. Number one, we need multiple equity sources. There's no one fund, one silver bullet that's going to solve all of the problems for her business owners of color who need equity financing. We need a lot of funds to do so, especially in large cities like Chicago. Number two, we needed an expanded focus and product alignment. We could use more revenue-based financing products that help match two businesses that are more moderately growth or more lifestyle oriented that are in certain sectors that don't fit some of the traditional equity products or don't fit, obviously, on the debt side. Number three, we need greater representation of people of color making decisions, usually at the general partner level on the investment side. Now, we started to see some momentum in Chicago, for instance, with initiatives like Chicago Blend, and even at the national level, you have leaders on the venture side like Cape Park Capital that are making efforts to have diverse teams making investment decisions. We need more. And number four, we need a mindset shift. This is not a moral problem. It's that it is a business imperative. There is alpha to be created. There is return to be created by investing in business owners of color who have the same opportunity as many of their counterparts to really generate positive return. We will all do better and be better economically with more investment in business owners of color. And so I ask you and leave you, what will you do? What steps will you take to ensure that cities have small business and entrepreneurial communities that are vibrant, thriving, and provide equal access to opportunity, especially equity capital to businesses, regardless of their race. You can download the additional findings and the full report at www.nextstreet.com. Thank you so much.