 in underserved and under-invested communities and affordable housing. I applaud our Mayor, Mayor Keisha Lanza, that's focused on this mission and also the City Council and the Invest Atlanta Board for taking on this initiative and this landmark strategy. Government partners like Invest Atlanta play an important role in supporting impact-minded entrepreneurship. Invest Atlanta is fortunate to have some of the most stellar staff out there that are professionals and are open and are innovative in their thinking and want to do things different and impact this city of Atlanta. We have had, we have made many initiatives have continued to work together with our city and our city partners to really drive this diverse and inclusive action. In fact, two years ago, we partnered with Spanx by Sarah Blake Leafs Foundation and the Atlanta Emerging Markets Inc. and the Center for Civic and Innovation in Atlanta to launch the first ever Civic Impact Loan Fund. This program helps entrepreneurs with funding launch and grow social impact businesses. Many of these are early stage social impact businesses. And while we all understand that sometimes accessing traditional bank financing is not possible. Supportive, we've been able for women like Jen Graham, who's the founder of Civic Dinners. This is an awesome platform where people get together over dinner and they talk about some of these very difficult conversations. And Chop Art founded by Malika Whitley to extend dignity, community and opportunity to youth experiencing homelessness through multidisciplinary arts immersion and mentorship. Also recently, we introduced a financing program called the Atlanta Forward Loan Fund. This provides financial assistance to small businesses and startups that are located in our accelerators, our incubators, our co-working space all in the city of Atlanta. Diversity is a strength makes impact here in Atlanta. We are home to many exceptional, successful social-minded entrepreneurs. And as I like to say, it is in Atlanta's DNA. Like Jasmine Crowe, who's founder and CEO of Gooder, this is a three-year-old startup that is focused on sustainable food supplies. Not only she headquartered here in Atlanta, but she is now leveraging her technology to reduce food waste and feed the hungry. Her company has been crucial in this COVID situation and has helped the Atlanta public schools and the students get excited to see, exciting to see her in action. And Dr. Novalis, she is focusing gender equality advocate who believes in economic empowerment and inclusive economic growth. She is the founder of Enrich Her and is deeply engaged in the network of women-led business owners. And then we have the Women's Entrepreneur Initiative. This is the proud home of what Enrich Her has been able to focus on and how we help support our women entrepreneurs here in the city of Atlanta. Creating an environment where businesses like Gooder and Enrich Her and the Women's Entrepreneur Initiative thrive is part of the picture here in Atlanta. An inclusive economy starts in communities that are socially-minded investments that create brighter futures. Tools like the tax allocation district or new market tax credits are helping increase education, provide better healthcare, increase well-being, specifically in lower income areas of Atlanta. For example, these tools have enabled us to fund a youth center like the At Promise Youth Center in English Avenue. This has been an exceptional program. Why? Because working together with our partners, Chris 180, Boys and Girls Club, the Police Athletics League, the Urban League have produced results we've never seen before here in Atlanta. They registered 347 at-risk youth. That far exceeded the goal of 150. The participants had a 2% recidivism rate compared to 20% in Fulton County. Additionally, the students who participated who were seniors, 92% of them actually graduated from our high schools and we are so proud of what they've been able to achieve. Those are just some examples of the great work that we see as a result of working together. I wanna thank you again for your time today, inclusive, intentional, equity-driven investments. It takes teamwork and a lot of focus. And please know in Best Land is here to partner with you and we are ready to support change in this city and in this country. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Now we'll welcome to the stage our first panel discussion of the day, Javier Torres Campos. Javier Torres Campos. Javier Torres Campos. Looks like we might be having a bit of technical difficulties. We'll wait on our panelists to join us here. Thank you for your patience. I see Sarah has joined us. I see our panelists are on their way. Thank you for your patience. Hey, Sarah, how are you? And I should close this out. It's because you're on your way. Close this out. Yeah, close this out on their way. Thank you for your patience. Hey, Sarah, how are you? And I'll close this out. Can anybody hear me? We can hear you, Erica. Thank you. How are you? Good, thank you. Sarah, I love your earrings. I had somebody give me if earrings are similar. Ooh, bear them to me. Now I can hear you. I'm gonna wear my earrings. Hi, Sarah, how are you? Good, thank you. Sarah, I love your earrings. I had somebody give me if earrings are similar. Still, I love your earrings. So I think that we might have a situation, okay, I think we are trying to work out some technical difficulties with one of our panelists. We apologize for that sound error. Sarah, are you doing well? Can anybody hear me now? Now we can hear you. Okay, was I doubling, by the way, because I heard myself twice? Yes, I think that was the problem, but I think they got you all worked out. Okay, I see Javier is here, Sarah is here, and I am going to exit. You guys are joined. Okay, thank you. Okay, was I doubling, by the way, because I heard myself twice? No. Yes, I think that was the problem, but I think they got you all worked out. What is that? Hey, y'all. I don't know if you can hear me. Sarah, Erica, can either of you hear me? Yes, I can. Beautiful. How are you both doing? I'm great. I'm just a little confused, because I think I'm opening two tabs. I think I've fixed it now, because I'm not getting the feedback. So I think we're all set for our conversation. Okay, let's hope so. All right. Hopefully it's not me. I just closed all those. I think we're good. So Sarah, do you want to start us off? Maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we can jump into the conversation. Erica can do the same in the work she's doing. Sure. So my name is Sarah Eagle-Hart. I'm Oglala Lakota. My Lakota name is Mamblishinaoui, which means Eagle-Shell Woman. I'm Petit Wache. I'm CEO and co-founder of Return of the Heart Foundation, which supports Indigenous women-led initiatives. I'm just excited to get the conversation going with you both. Yes, hi. My name is Erica Alexander, and most people know me as an actress. I've been acting for 37 years. Don't do the math. I'm proud, but let's stay on past here. And I now have a co-founder of the company called Color Farm Media, and Color Farm Media is a film and television media company. We call ourselves the Motown of Film, Television and Tech. Our goal is to bring greater diversity and equity to media. And I'm very, very happy to be here. Beautiful. And my name is Javier Torres. I'm the Director of the Thriving Cultures Program at a almost 103-year-old family foundation based in New York called The Certain Foundation. The strategy that I oversee invests in cultural strategies to undo racism in the U.S. and build a more racially equitable society. To think today, we're talking about the role of investing in artists. You know, I would love to hear from the two of you and the work that you're doing and your ideas about how we do that well. And Howard, what are some of the examples that you two have been working on? Well, at Color Farm Media, Sarah, if you don't mind our start off, is that okay? Well, at Color Farm Media, we know that representation matters. I know that because out of my own story, I played this character called Maxine Shaw. She was on Living Single, a show that ran for five years on Fox. And at the time, in my young 20s, I thought nothing of really just being in a show. I was an actress. I was hired to do something and I did it. But now, nearly 30 years later, I can see how it was like a ripple effect. And it went out and it inspired young people at the time. And they come up to me now and tell me that they're in politics and leadership positions and because of Maxine Shaw. And it's just not anybody. It's people like Stacey Abrams, Marilyn Mosby, Mayor de Blasio and his wife. I met five judges that won last in 2018. And they, I was in New Orleans and they all stopped me and said, you have no idea what that character meant for us. I had gobs of teachers, you know, pin me in and say, do you understand how significant that was? Well, I do now. But at the time, it was, again, me fulfilling the need as an actress to do the show. But what it meant for other people was that they were seeing themselves. So then we ask ourselves the question or we answer that question when we do stories is what does this have to do with me? And it's answered by that story. And I truly believe to this day that we get, you don't, if you want to really change policy, if you really want to influence culture and tell a story that can again, echo from New Mexico to New York to Bangladesh, you should tell a story. Because I think past flesh and bone, that will turn to dust. But stories are evergreen, ever ready and everlasting. And that's why stories matter. Yeah. And for me, I mean, so a lot of my work has been kind of all over the place. And I feel, you know, part of what I really love about this moment is that, you know, we are breaking systems. I mean, as much as COVID is so painful, and what's happening right now in the aftermath of George Floyd is systems are breaking. And I think that that's so exciting for me, because as somebody that has spent their time in so many different sectors, like whether it was a faith based, you know, Episcopal church, or the philanthropic sector, I sort of landed around where we really can't have any change for Native Americans until, you know, we're really seen on every level of media. And so Return to the Heart Foundation is focused on really changing that narrative. But what that means is we have to be visible in every aspect. And so for me, unconventional partnerships. And I think like every sector, you know, even entertainment industry is more is so, you know, they live and die by like their linear thoughts and are like, no, we have to, you know, we have to do it this way. You're in no you're in this area in this area. And I've actually really enjoyed not having all of those lines and, you know, being so set into places because I think that, as you know, Javier, many of us that work in social justice and have for a long time, I think that's the through line for every, you know, project or career that I've had is that we are also the storytellers. And so, you know, we have all the stories. And so for me, it's like, okay, if I want to reach, you know, maximum impact, I have to find a way to really create a culture shift across America, where holistic indigenous wisdom is an everyday thing, right? Because right now we're falling back on patriarchy and like Western systems that haven't worked for us at all. And so, you know, one of the examples that I would point to is Crow the Legend, which I was really happy to get, you know, a credit for and get an Emmy for. But that was a project with John Legend, who, you know, their partnership with Baobab Studios with Get Lifted Studios, you know, they wanted to tell a story around virtual reality and to be able to, you know, share a story about how the crow became black. And then to have amazing allies step forward and play the voices of these characters, you know, like, you know, John Legend played the skunk, Constance Wu, actually Constance Wu played the skunk, Ty Sheridan played the turtle. You know, we had Liza Kochi in there that she played, you know, an owl. And then Oprah playing the one that created everything by thinking. And the world, which is, you know, a 360 world where you're dancing with the animals and you're trying to save the earth, basically. As a Lakota person that grew up with understanding that we are all related the animals to Mother Earth as well, to see it in this visual medium was very healing for me as an adult, because I was, it was playful. It was a playful way to like heal. But it was visual and was, you know, right into the entertainment industry. You know, so when I was asked to play the moon, Luna, which is named after John's daughter, for us, the moon is named how we, I played the moon because they asked me to. But also because I was like, how could you say no to playing the moon? Like, that's the moon. So I did it. But I have to say, Erica, it was super hard. Like, I was like, I am not an actress. Like, I had like you did well. It was hard. But yeah, I love those types of projects where it's a collaboration, there's social justice attached to it. And we're also breaking and changing systems. And for me, that's that's the exciting part. Amazing. You know, we've had a lot at CERDA in my two years and my 10 years in philanthropy now, a lot about what it means to resource storytellers, culture bears and artists. One of the central tenants that we've brought to the strategy is that it's important that society gets away from this idea of the capital A artist, and really understands that culture is embedded in our urban planning and design, our storytelling that happens on TV. It's embedded in our policies and systems and connected to our values. And how do we really resource artists from an R&D perspective to think holistically about their needs so that they can bring their intellectual capital to bear to solve some of the challenges that we believe need to be solved in society. Some of the ways that we're doing that we have a, you know, a nationwide our individual artist re granting program with 11 organizations across the country, that's solely supporting artists of color that want to work with their communities to begin to prototype and imagine racially just systems. We think a lot about, you know, a project that I had the privilege of being a part of in Boston called that was led by an organization called the Design Studio for Social Intervention that was saying, if we have public libraries and public schools in every neighborhood, why aren't our tax dollars making sure that everybody has access to healthy food if food is a basic human right? So they created a public kitchen where folks could get free food where they created a seed library and a recipe library and created a narrative that recognized that most low income communities and communities of color are going from their first job to their second job to their third job, just trying to pick up kids from school, get parents from elder care and make enough money to keep food on the table. So that means as funders that we need to think critically about how we fund debt reduction, how we fund savings for retirement and healthcare, how we think about in some of the budgets that we've developed with our partners, we even have a vacation line item because somehow in our society vacations have become a privilege for those of us that have salary jobs or have amassed some level of wealth. And in reality, all of us as humans need to be able to get away and be inspired and reflect and rest in order to bring the best of who we are to our work. One of the other things that we've been doing is working specifically in immersive technology space, recognizing that female founders and founders of color will continue to face two primary sort of fundraising barriers, whether they're in media or any other sort of sector. I think about an amazing producer, an artist on Thomas based in LA who used to work with Will Smith and his production company, who's been trying to get this sort of narrative space and speculative fiction for females of color and their stories and their perspective and their view and their gaze for themselves and for the world out into the rest of society. And so part of what we've been thinking is how do we use grant dollars to overcome the first hurdle? Most women and people of color don't have the networks in order to raise the $150,000 to a couple million dollars in a friends and family round on an idea that they have. Well, grant dollars could replace that because then when many of our sort of friends and family rounds fail and we go to a series A with VCs and with angel investors, they look at that friends and family round and say, well, if your community doesn't believe in it, then we won't either. So we partner with our director of impact investing that builds financial models, does some financial due diligence with these companies and then thinks about how we might be able to follow on with a program related investment out of our endowment that is an equity investment in the IP of the company. Thereby creating a financial runway of one to 10 years and then in that time, socializing those entrepreneurs and those companies and portfolios with our fund managers that are part of our primary portfolio so that they're ready for a series B and overcoming those two big financial barriers. But those are some of the ways in which we think and we're trying to use sort of our bully pulpit and our positional power to influence how others are resourcing the sector. I think that's awesome. What I love about that have a year is that it's for profit. Now that's what I heard and I have been told by people, oh, we'll invest with you if you make it not for profit. And I go, why? Why am I not for profit? Because you don't have the balls, you think that it's a risk. So you want to be able to write me off. But you've written me off for centuries. No, I plan to be a success. I must be a success. I must show that not only are these stories important, that they're valuable. And that means that I can make a return on investment. And you should look at me as something that's not just a charity and or a good feeling or oh, this fulfills a something in your to check off. No, that this is something that you fully expect to be accountable toward making not only a valuable return on investment, but also valuable return on investment inside of community that needs it. And so I so appreciate that because that's what you're talking about. And I and I've done, I do diligence on you, brother. And the that's really sustainable communities as you put it and is everything. But I also believe that that whole you talk about narrative, it takes a village narrative is exactly what you're talking about when you say that you're that when people look at the arts program and they say, you know, we need to fund this because for years, they made a whole, I want to say campaign out of defunding the arts. And now here we have people saying defund the police. And we know that that means totally more than what you know, it's it stands for at first, but they defunded the arts. And this is what it got us to it got us to the death of George Floyd, being his knee of man's knee put in the back of his neck, like he was a piece of trash and or a fallen animal. And in broad daylight, somebody could film you. And they think nothing of it that they not only knew that they could do it, but they would be no accountability. And guess what, people said no. So I appreciate all that. And I think it's high time. That's the narrative I'd like to hear. And that's the best narrative I've heard for probably since I co founded Color Farm, was that you were willing to invest in something that was going to have a return on investment? Even Sarah, you know, what I think about some of the narrative work that we've been doing, we were planning an event in Chicago and trying to ask private industry and government to have to reckon with its relationship to land and labor. And our native partners in Chicago said, all of that's good, well and good, Javier, if y'all like some policy wins about how to redistribute land. But fundamentally, until we reckon with the genocide that's happened on this land, it's those those policy wins can be short, short lived. We've seen the way that our government, whether it's at the local level or the federal level can swing from far left to far right over time. But if we look at examples like in South Africa with apartheid and in Germany with Holocaust, one of the first things that each of those societies needed to do was to publicly recognize the genocide, to create physical landmarks and recognitions so they could no longer be denied that this entire country and society was built on the stealing of land and murdering of Indigenous peoples and the stealing of labor from Black individuals that were brought mostly from Western Africa. And so I wonder, as you think about the narrative change work that you've been a part of, whether you've seen opportunities or some bright spots where folks are in fact working towards that kind of reckoning and public recognition and or how you think we might be able to organize to get there. Yeah, I think we have a long way to go. But I think that, you know, I started with narrative change around the history of America when I worked at the Episcopal Church on the staff of the presiding bishop Catherine Jeffery Shory, where the Episcopal Church in 2009 was the first church to repudiate the doctrine of discovery. Now, I and then the World Council of Churches repudiate the doctrine of discovery, which is basically manifest destiny, the inherent right to conquer and rule of people, which is what caused is causing everything, all of the injustices that have happened to all of the people of color. It's going to lay it out there. So like they've already said, they're sorry. And but also I say, okay, and what, you know, I, you know, I appreciate your sorry, but, you know, you know, you can actually, you know, make amends by giving our land back. That'd be cool. Like, how about you give the resources back to our community? And I think that that's the next level of like really being able to rematriate the land and resources that go back to our community and to indigenous peoples. And I think, you know, for me, one is that I've been really fortunate to be able to develop relationships with influencers. And I began that around five years ago, right after Standing Rock, because there was an opening. It was like all of a sudden society had an opening where they had gotten a perspective of, you know, what was really happening to Native Americans. And they wanted to know more influencers wanted to know more. And so I jumped into that space and said, okay, here I am, I'm ready to help you. I'm because I also understood that, you know, their platforms being able to share these messages on their platforms was that was how we were going to create culture ship. That was how we were really going to create something different for us. And so for me seeing impact was jumping into that space with places like people like, you know, Mark Ruffalo, who has done various projects with me. And then being approached by, you know, building relationships with musicians like Portugal the man or dispatch or Mumford and Sons, you know, these granted white male, you know, organizations, but, you know, but they were also like, let me learn more. And then so many of them taking up land acknowledgements, right. And like making it just a normal thing. Portugal the man was doing that probably over a year ago, he was doing that he was the first one. Secondly, I think there are systems that have to be changed. So with us, we're we actually created a fellow a fellowship called return of the heart society of indigenous women. And part of what I saw was that the women that were on the ground indigenous women were usually the organizers on the ground for anything that was happening. And so when COVID happened, we jumped in because you know, I how could you not. And then you had all of these tribal networks, you know, that regional tribal networks that could really be in action. And of course, they were all led by women. And then, and then when the protests started, the riots started happening, of course, indigenous women were in the middle of it for their communities. And I began to really think about how these women are the grassroots leaders, but yet they're fighting for basic things, like health. I mean, are you kidding me? They're fighting for basic things like health. So if they wanted to get a friends and family round of funding for a project that they have, come on, like it's almost it's almost unheard of for them to even have the time or the opportunity because there's still many of them living in poverty conditions. And I think for me, like that's what kills me, because you know, I come from that background, I come from those those conditions. I actually know how to play the philanthropy game, right? Like I actually, I know how to play, you know, I did the Hollywood game, right? Like so, when I think about like how difficult it is for somebody like me, that's even gone through all of that, you know, those systems and hardships and challenges to to find that type of funding, you know, I thought, okay, we need to create a fellowship program for these women, because not only do they need access to funding, but they also need access to a support community and to other other women's to network them in. So that's where I'm I see a lot of opportunity coming. I want to remind folks that you can put questions in the chat for us to respond to. Eric, I wanted to come back to the storytelling, you know, one of the things that I'm really excited about with the work that you've done with Color Farm is that in many ways, you started tapping into the two primary mediums, where I think storytellers have the most leverage on audiences, both in comic books and on TV, are the only places where audiences connect with individual characters and storylines over long periods of time. Film and other sort of forms of media are flashes in the pan. And so I think a lot about or I'm curious around your intentionality with those two particular mediums, I know that you do film work as well and other forms of media and leadership, but I noticed that those were two sort of pillars that you started with and would love to learn about your sort of intentionality and strategy there. Sure. I was very unintentional in doing it because I did it as a means to get around the racism and pushback when we, me and my creative partner Tony Perrier created something, let me just set this up, a graphic novel called Concrete Park. And we first imagined it as a film and television show, actually. He was the first African-American to write a movie that made over a hundred million dollars. He wrote Eraser. And I had already done the Cosby show and Living Single by that time and thought we could use some of this leverage to talk about black people and brown people in space because we were very inspired by City of God. So we thought, what if we did that but in space somewhere on another planet? And our simple question was, what if Earth sent its youth off to another planet? Would they reproduce the tribalism, the hostility, and the racism? Or would they make something new? And our bet was that they were going to make something new and beautiful, but it would go through a very hard journey. When we pitched that, this is an actual quote from the movie producer, president of a company here in Hollywood. We started to pitch, he says, let me stop you right there. Black people don't like science fiction because they don't see themselves in the future. He actually said that. And it's because he had had some sort of experience with making some movie and a black man stayed at one of their focus testing. And they came out and they asked him, do you have any questions? And he looked at the screen and he said, yeah, I just want to know how that nigga get to Mars. That is a full quote. Now, my partner at the time stopped him and said, let me tell you something about black people. For black people, the past is paying for the present for carries, but the future is free. We always create the future. We are the aliens that you took from across the ocean to rock your world and make your planets twirl. And by the way, he reminded them about Tavia Butler and Samuel Delaney. And he said, last time I checked, Will Smith is the number one science fiction star in the world, which he was. He was independent. He was men in black. So this was a straight lie. His narrative told him from one man, they can't see themselves in the future when the whole future around him had been built by the thoughts of black and brown people. Look at Stevie Wonder. He took the Samba and put it in his, yeah, you look at the Beatles and they were inspired by the native and the tribal beats that they were hearing. So we were offended, but here's what we did. We got mad and he decided to teach himself how to illustrate comics after 50 years of age. And that's what you see with Concrete Park. It was a means to an end. It became proof of life and concept, but that's what they're forcing you to do. They force you to lift, make a whole mountain in order to do the thing that you were given on earth to do. We still have not done the film and television show and we plan to, but I'm just showing you, talking to you a happy year about, well, sometimes something to do, to do things because of racism and it pushes it forward. And we go back to the caveman narrative of pictures on a wall. You're right, comic books are very instructive and they move past language and anybody can enjoy them. But I'm doing a documentary now on reparations and some of the reparational work that needs to be done now is the lie that we told ourselves about the extent of how we are represented inside of all media. And it doesn't stop at just wanting to be in stories, which by the way, we, that will change everything. But it also means podcasts. It also means comic books. It also means in space. It also means in health. It also means everywhere. So that's, that's reparations work for real. And Amen. It's totally necessary. Our time is coming to an end. Sarah and Erica, I'd love to just hear some closing thoughts from both of you before we wrap. Yeah. I, you know, my closing thoughts are really around storytelling and how I think that storytelling is, it's a very contemporary form of healing too. And I think that, you know, indigenous people's part of the stories for us is that it's, it's also our connection to our culture. It's our connection to our identity. It's connection to our spirituality. And so for me, that type of storytelling is really interesting because I think sometimes people don't really value those types of stories and, and they don't understand how we really need those stories for healing. And for me, I, you know, I went to Ghana last August for the 400 year return. And it was such an amazing experience, but I really saw so much of the similarities between Native American tribal groups as well as the truth, the tribal groups there and some of the practices. And, you know, it really brought home to me that the way that we can heal is really through telling these stories. And so one thing that I'm working on right now is a self-help slash memoir with my identical twin sister, Emma Eagleheart White, who's a psychotherapist. And we really decided to tell the stories of our lives because we thought we've been through so much. And we want to be able to give back and help our community heal, especially when our community has so little access to mental health opportunities, but also see it as a way to help other, you know, non-Native groups connect to spirituality and understand Indigenous worldview. And so for me, those things are intrinsically like related. And we have to be able to know each other's stories and histories and how we can also be unified in order to really create change. And that's like across the board, like doing the work and showing up. And so thank you. Sarah. Erica, closing thoughts? Well, I just want to say thank you to you, Javier and Sarah. Thank you so much for inspecting from inviting me and having this opportunity. And I think overall that one of the things that you and I have in common, Sarah, is that I grew up in a Native land. I grew up in Arizona, from the mountains and Flagstaff. I was born in Winslow, and I grew up around Navajo and Hopi children. And I didn't know that they were any different from me. So that culture is very dear to my heart. When I see that culture, I think of myself and people wouldn't see me in that space. They see me in urban space because of the things I've been on, but I'm very, very tied to Native lands. And more importantly, the Southern Gothic culture that I lived in, that they caught no country for old men, no country for Black men. That's exactly what I experienced. And so to see a beautiful brown man and your beautiful self, which are identical twin, talking about telling your stories and memoir is inspiring to me. And the last thing that I'll say is that I want people to understand that the hidden figures that they found, like 40 years after the moon launch, it shouldn't have taken 40 years to hear about those women. And there's lots of hidden figures out there and Titus Kafer, who paints now, he paints out the white faces. It's brilliant. So you can see the person standing next to you. That's exactly the work we're doing. It's reparative work. It's restorative, more importantly, it's sustainable, as you say, environments. Now we're talking about the things that you've put your, your life and commitment to. And so I appreciate the opportunity to say I'm down with you with that work. Thank you both so much. My final thoughts for any of the investors or fund managers that are part of Spectrum and the SoCAP community is, you know, statements of support are beautiful and not enough. You need to make sure that you're backing it up with your money. Invest in these women, invest in these communities of color, let them fuck it up and make mistakes and then throw more money at them and keep letting them continue to build, design, imagine and change this world. So thank you both so much for making time and I look forward to seeing y'all out in the world. See you. Take care. Beautiful. Wow. Thank you so much to Erica, Sarah, Javier for centering art in this movement. It's reparative, restorative and sustainable. That is exactly right. And so I thank you for that conversation. Now we're going to turn our attention to our first Lightning Bolt of the day with Cherise Conanan Johnson. Hi, my name is Cherise Conanan 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 managing partner at Next Street. A 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. As 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 Arc 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 four 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. I'll 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. 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. And 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 sits, 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 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. But 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. When I 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. Revenue based financing is 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 debt, 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 Latinx 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 Latinx counterparts. This is appalling, but why is this the case? There are several contributive factors. I want to introduce Daniel 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 Daniel was starting his business, he just did not have a lot of options on the equity side. Number two, there's this product mismatch. Darnell 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. And so that mismatch is often there. There are not that many revenue-based financing options that really match needs like Darnell'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 Darnells 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 expanded focus and product alignment. We could use more revenue-based financing products that help match two businesses that are more moderately growth, were 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 death 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 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 fight 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. Cherise, thank you so much for that. I think we're wet. There you are. How are you? I am doing very well. It's so great to be here. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. You laid out very clearly steps and what we need to do to kind of see a change in this space in terms of having entrepreneurs of color access more capital. But I wondered if you could go a little bit deeper in terms of how do we go about increasing equity capital sources across the country, but certainly in Chicago, but also across the country? Absolutely. Thanks for the question. I do think we are at a critical moment where we have the wind at our backs to launch additional funds with, obviously, institutional money, other limited partners. And so I think one of the things that we hear often is, well, there's just one fund and let's throw everybody to that one fund and hope for the best. And so I just want to encourage us to think broadly about we need multiple funds that are out there and we need funds across the continuum. And so you have a market like Chicago where one particular, for instance, revenue-based financier founders first. Some people might have heard of them, but they are a revenue-based financing organization. They have a fund and they are trying to build and expand into new markets. They started out in Southern California. They're also based in Texas. And so we need to embrace new solutions like this in cities to help to ensure that they're successful, but also help other traditional equity sources as well. So it does take a whole ecosystem in order to, one, let business owners also be aware that these sources exist and allow these sources to be capitalized properly, not just with the money, but also with the human talent necessary to be making investment decisions as we move forward. So in some senses, that question seems much easier than the last one that I will leave with you. And that is you talked about really trying to, one of the things that the solutions that needs to happen is really shifting the mindsets of folks so that they're not seeing people of color as social problems, but as business opportunities. Now, if we look into the history, we know that at one point, Black folk and brown folk were seen as business opportunities. What would you say it will take to really shift the mindsets of partners to really look at Black and brown folk differently? Sure. I would point to two things. One is, and this is one I feel like we have to believe that this can happen, which is education around what you just said, that this isn't charity. And when we actually look at the numbers and experiences of successful Black business owners, there are so many examples of what that can look like. And we need to lift those examples up so much more, but also recognize that those aren't just a talented 10th. There is a whole lot of other Black and brown folk doing really fast-moving and innovative solutions out here to solve problems for customers. So part of it is just education and exposure. But then the second part, which I think is even more important, is reading by example. You're not going to get the mindset shift if people in decision-making platforms and of authority don't also see other people taking the step. And you have to ask yourself, why not me? You can't always wait for the next person to take action steps and invest the capital, writing the check, it matters. As a person myself who was an entrepreneur who started a company, a lot of times in these types of investment opportunities, you have people following the herd. But I want to encourage folks to take the step themselves, lead their peers, and use your wealth to usurp the system forces that have got us in this place in the first place. And so it's going to take bold, courageous action. And hopefully that's a multiplier effect so that it's not just seen as bold down the line. It's par for the course. And that's what we need to move to in order to move the mindset. Absolutely. Sharice, I want to thank you for giving up your time and energy today. And I thank you for joining us and giving us things to think about and real solutions because that's what we are here to do is really uplift those solutions that we can take action on. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Nadia. It's a pleasure to be here and looking forward to more great things out of you all. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. So very interesting tie between