 Welcome everyone. My name is Rachel Alexander and I'm the deputy director at New America, California. New America, California works on issues of economic equity around the state, and we're very pleased to be hosting this conversation about gender equity in business during the COVID-19 era. We're especially pleased to be hosting it in partnership with the same commission on the status of women. And my co-moderator today is Briana Zort. She's the president of the commission. I'm going to hand it right over to her to give us started. Thank you for the kind introduction, Rachel. I'm honored to be here tonight. I want to say thank you to all of the panelists and participants as well. The last few weeks have been really rough on a lot of folks and I shouldn't even say weeks. It's been months. They're all running together against the backdrop of a pandemic disproportionately impacting black and brown communities. The disease of racial injustice is also present and has manifested itself in recent executions of Amad Aubrey, Brianna Taylor, Tony McDade and George Floyd. Each of these lives to their friends and families as well as our communities are immeasurable. And the commission on the status of women stands in solidarity with those who feel unsafe, targeted, unseen and unheard. With a renewed sense of greater urgency, the commission will continue to advocate for a level playing field for women and girls, and especially in our black and brown communities and lift up the voices of our next generation of leaders. And I want to say thank you to our hosts and panelists for being here because I know in this time there's there are so many layers, you know that we're all working and fighting against as well on personal and professional levels. Our panelists today are juggling multiple hats as we always do when it comes to childcare, business, family members, and you know I have to say you all are looking quite fabulous and holding it together. So thank you again. And a special shout out to Carmen to who I know is not only juggling multiple hats, but also multiple meetings with politicians right now. And as things often happen, you never know where the agenda is going to be some may have to drop off pretty quickly. So thank you again for making the time. Really quick, I wanted to open up and say specifically while we're here as well is the April jobs report really just confirmed the gender gap rising and unemployment women's unemployment is at 16.2% compared to men's, which was at 13%. And, you know, overall 13% unemployment rate is extremely high by historical standards, its peak was 10% during the Great Recession, but recovery, as people are starting to look at it in May doesn't seem to arrive for all workers, either. Specifically black women, you see a dip in the main numbers as well. And so we really wanted to convene this group today to talk about how is this impacting different businesses from all sectors, and what we can do to come together. But before we dive in, we would love to hear more about you. And can we start with our panelists on sharing the two minute story of you and what makes you passionate about women owned businesses. Can I pick on you Claire to start with you first. Oh, you're on mute. Yes, always, even though Rachel reminded me. I'm clearly, I'm an Irish national. I haven't yet taken the dip to become a citizen of a country that needs to do a lot of work, I think still to keep immigrants like me engaged and committed to being here. When I grew up in Ireland I left in 1997. I really struggled to get any basically any college education I took my way into a few things. But you know my mom was intent on me becoming a secretary and just learning to type, and that didn't really appeal. So I grew up in an era that was very much like service oriented and so my, my grandmother was very involved in the community through the church. And I think that just by osmosis somehow got through to me. And so my whole career really has been about making connections globally, and I've really enjoyed meeting and working with and trying to accelerate the development of a range of people from all walks of life. We, you know, for instance did demo Africa with the Clinton with the Obama's administration and secretary Clinton was in charge of the State Department and we are continuing that every year since. So I'm proud to be in a position now. After many decades in the technology industry working for Microsoft to be a global ambassador for a company called SVB capital. And as I said to my friend today it's really, you know I'm right in the middle of the money. It's a perfect storm. Everybody is now into and listening and hearing mission driven. You know, raison d'etre. And so I moved here nine and a half years ago. I've seen the Valley change an awful lot in that time I had one daughter Natasha is 10 in the UK. She's a British passport holder and then I had my baby boy Benjamin here in the US so he's an American so our household is pretty, pretty Tuvers. But I want to leave the campground in a better place and I found it like I was lucky to nature's I had a lot of great support and a lot of adversity, but somehow through a really messy divorce and all that good stuff. I think I came out stronger and I'm in a really good position right now to make a lot of change happen. And I'm very excited to be at the forefront of this. Great. Thank you for that. And Carmen may pick on you next. You're also new. I know it gets me every single time. I'm Carmen. I serve as San Francisco's elected assessor and I am so pleased to join all of you today. And thank you Brianna for mentioning the board meeting that I'm monitoring on the side. We're, we're actually presenting today on a element of reopening the economy today and so I want to make sure that I'm able to plug into it when the time comes for me to talk about what we've done so far. Just a quick two minutes for me. You know, one of the things I do is I run an office of over about roughly 200 people in the assessor's office. We bring in about 3.3 billion dollars annual annually for public services. And I am a board member on the San Francisco retirement system that is a system that oversees about $26 billion in investments for our 71,000 active and retired public service workers. And that includes people who work for San Francisco our child courts our education system City College and so on. So it's incredibly important to make sure that we secure people's retirement and their futures as well. So last year I was actually the only Asian American elected assessor in the state of California and when a very few women assessors across the state elected. And so certainly understand sometimes the dynamics associated with having a less representation in different parts of our, our economy and the work that we do the public service that we do. So this is my personal background. I'm a daughter of immigrants. I very much identify with the struggles that I think many communities states in terms of access representation and opportunities frankly. I grew up helping out at my parents restaurant from a very young age all the way through college until and until I left for the Bay Area and so that's something that that I identify very much with in terms of economic opportunity through business ownership. So I'm a new mother to a young baby girl of one who has a lot of personality and gets me up really really early in the morning. And so when I think about why supporting women owned businesses and women and entrepreneurship is so important to me. For me it really represents independence. And so I think why why it matters to me so much is, again, having the ability to to own to build wealth to be able to have a secure financial place means to me the ability to pursue dreams that the ability to be independent to be free. So I think that's, that's why it matters to me and for my daughter in the future to make sure that we do that for women. Congratulations on your bundle of joy. Definitely. And, and our next mother who also has a wonderful dream that I enjoy as well sharing with Miss Sherry McMullen. Thank you so much for having having us here and putting together this panel. I'm Sherry McMullen. I'm the founder and CEO of luxury retail women's luxury retail businesses in Oakland and Palo Alto. I recently opened Palo Alto about a year not even quite a year ago but I opened our Oakland store, almost 13 years ago. And I've lived in Oakland for 17 years I moved to the Bay from Oklahoma, almost 20 years ago so Oakland has definitely become my home. I'm very passionate about supporting the community here, especially female owned businesses. It's something I'm very passionate about because I, growing up in Oklahoma, I was really surrounded by such strong women in my life, my mom, my grandmothers, my aunts, my four sisters, were all really strong women. So I think I've always been inspired by sort of their beauty and their strength and my mom was a business owner herself and she was also very active in the community. So when I started this business, I knew I wanted to create something that was really special for women by women and really focusing on female designers. But I'm excited to talk about female ownership because I think it's really important. I just mentioned before about how important it is for women to own our own and make sure that we're creating space for other women, especially black women at the table. So I'm excited to be here and discuss that more. Thank you again. Ameliana, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background. So my name is Ameliana. I'm super thankful to be here with everybody. I'm originally from Venezuela, though I was born in New York, sort of grew up between Venezuela and the US. And as I imagine as a common story with folks who grew up in two places, you sort of never feel like you belong in either one, you have a bit of lost child and then adult syndrome. But I'm a chef by trade since a young age I knew that cooking and food was my happy place and where I wanted to be. So naturally, San Francisco spoke to me and at the age of 19. I made the move to the Bay Area and have been here ever since. And, you know, have for a long, long time worked as a line cook in some of San Francisco's fanciest restaurants. Only to find out that this, you know, industry of hospitality is highly inhospitable, particularly to women, particularly to women of color and particularly to queer women of color. And so I sort of by chance found my way out and then further into the industry and landed at La Cocina, which is where I work now. I initially landed there as an entrepreneur, started my own business, and then eventually folded that business and went back to the organization which we can get into more later but I mean, business ownership and particularly women ownership and business is incredibly important to me. It's, it's my daily work and I think it's, it's what needs to happen in order to build a world that is more just and equitable. Thank you. Thank you for that. Miss Jolene, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself. Hi, I'm Jolene here. I own a restaurant and bar in, in San Francisco. It's a queer bar, a little background on me. I grew up kind of as a runaway for the most part of my young life, and trying to find acceptance in a home was a big thing for me. And I realized, you know, at a young age that I was really good at getting people together, you know, finding homes for people and talking to them and, and making them feel safe. And I grew up working in restaurants, bars all my life, and I got into management and I realized that in San Francisco, a lot of our spaces were disappearing. I had a lot of spaces for women in particular. So I started, I've been an event producer for about 10 years and it was really hard for me to find a home for a, like a lesbian party every Friday or I'd have to jump to different places I would be discriminated or, or sexualized and just so many things I had to find so many things about places just for women to be safe. And I, it was hard for me to find it so I decided to do it myself. So everything that I've gone through growing up working in the industry. I want to give that back to all of my employees that work for me. I want to give more women more POC people a chance to really thrive without being being judged or second guests. So that's, yeah, that's what I do here. So I think it's really important to see more representation of, of, of POC people, women, because we don't get taken seriously. I want to be able to give the advice to the next generation or people that want, or other women that want to open their own business. I don't want to tell them. Are you ready to give up everything. I don't want to tell them, or ask them, are you strong enough to smile at your customers when you're heavily in debt. Like, I want to be a stronger voice and not deliver the bad news. Yeah, that's me. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone and makes me really excited to hear everything that's going to come next based on what you've shared already. I'm a assessor to referenced your reference that the ability to have freedom and to build a dream is part of what makes entrepreneurship so special and so important for issues of equity, but we also know that even before this COVID crisis there are entrepreneurs for whom gender presented real barriers to prosperity and that's still the case right and so that includes women entrepreneurs it includes business owners who are non binary and gender and so I'd love to hear from everyone. A little bit more about the challenges that these entrepreneurs are facing right now whether you are one yourself or you're supporting entrepreneurs in your role, your professional role based on what you're seeing in your work. What are those challenges, what are people facing with with sherry. I would say just, you know, being a black female business owner. I think the challenges that we face proceed the COVID-19 so you know we've been faced with challenges along the way with sometimes very little support and access to capital. And I think that I have personally experienced being in business for 13 years and I know several of my peers and other black owned female, in particular business owners experience. And if you think about just the numbers itself it's like we as black business owners we are the least funded group to receive funds from banks. I opened my store 13 years ago and with lots of experience industry experience with a solid business plan with money I was still turned down by banks and it took a very long time to be able to get to a place where I could actually go to into a bank and walk in and actually be taken seriously and this happens a lot with female business owners but in particular female business owners. And even just some of the stats with, you know, only less than 1% of black women are funded through VCs. And yet we're the fastest growing group of business owners. And that is something that really should be changed and also more people should be talking about it. So, you know when COVID-19 happened. I think it really just shed light on the disparity between black and white business owners. And not to mention you know the disproportionate number of black people that are actually dying from COVID-19. I mean when you think about just the studies right now and the studies are showing that 40% of black businesses will not survive COVID-19 versus their white counterparts that I think only 8% of those businesses are saying that they won't survive. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done when you think about the disproportionate number of businesses that are suffering. I mean I'd like to jump in quickly if I may as the banker in the room. You know being someone who's challenged the status quo and really asked very like fundamental questions of leadership for quite a long time has been as you may imagine both counterproductive and also very rewarding. So three things quickly. One, when I joined SBB in 2014 that was the first year we did a startup outlook report with a focus on gender. And again I'm very proud of that you know Brianna knows like I could have gone to Google and I chose this company because every time I met with an executive I came out grinning and I couldn't figure out why. But it was because of this kind of self examination right in an evolution. A lot of it I think to do with the male executives as well having daughters and wives you again can continue to challenge. But here's the thing in 2014, our first gender priority survey. I think we can safely say that innovation is global, but it's not inclusive. My observation at that point of course and every year since frankly is that it's not just about the representation it's about getting the economics, the wealth into the hands of those who do not have it so that concentration of wealth in a period of abundance. It kind of made me nauseous right because it's like wow everyone thinks because I'm here and I'm you know I'm wealthy. That is in the case, you know you have to pay all the money you might have, you know healthcare bills, all of this. So I think that was the first thing that struck me the second thing is that when we looked at it right the directionally right it seemed positive right between 2014 2019 that's a, you know, basically, say five six surveys whatever it is so now I see it went from say, you know, women founding on the founding team from 22% to 24% to 26%. That's not transformational right it's the same thing with venture capital you look at global venture capital. You know $80 billion $100 billion is employed deployed. You know, we should like are we women supposed to be happy that it's like 4% 3% it's it's confounding. So the third thing I will say is this, I feel that this is a transformational time. We have never seen the VC industry venture capital be so basically prompted demanded right transparency. How do you make your decisions is it fair is it equitable or do you just call your like business school buddies. I mean we all know the answer right but it's not that we don't like men and don't want to have them in our world. It's that we just need to help educate and inform and say, if you're more inclusive, you'll make more money. Because to get the economics into the hands of everybody. Everybody has to be at the table in the first place. Everybody has to be on the cap table. You don't benefit from your hard work your initiative your tenacity. You're amazing vision to build a business like Sherry you're amazing like dream to take your passion like cooking with a miliana. It's this is tenacity in a box. And now I feel we're at that tipping point we're 222426 and good enough. There are more people standing up and saying, you got to see me, you got to hear me and I'm sorry it's uncomfortable. I'm glad it makes you nauseous. But this is what it's going to be about checks, right to checks, you know, make the highest and the wire. So I need to end on a kind of a positive by saying look, I feel you, it's, it's been very painful, not just as a woman single mom, who sits on the board of, you know, an organization that helps survivors of domestic violence. Get a credit score, exit their abusive situation and get back on their feet. This is this is personal. So I want to I want to just give you a sense that from my perspective as a banker. That ain't good enough anymore and good on you Sherry and others on this call for saying that does not work for me. Because a lot of the main street banks. They don't frankly give a damn right so you have to find your partner and just say okay, we're in this together. And I'm amazed at the tenacity of the women on this call but also by those that are coming up in the generation behind us because they absolutely are not comfortable with the status quo. So I think to harness this energy and make a difference as I said, I'm in the middle of the money. It's an amazing time to be here. And I think we can affect real change through the economics. I agree with you on that Claire that for a long time folks are saying the, you know, this incremental approach that you know that they're trying to hand out isn't working anymore. And assessor to I'd love to hear as you're on the San Francisco Economic Recovery Task Force, what have you seen from business owners as well what challenges are they facing. And how do we need to rethink this moment to move forward and to actually recover. Yeah, and I think I share a lot of the sentiments and, you know, I think many of the comments were well spoken and I think it articulated some of the challenges we see and I think as women we really need to be thinking about how we also support other women and bring people up with us. That's so incredibly important. You know, I serve as the assessor but in a different role right now. You know the mayor as well as a supervisor ye has asked me to co chair the city's economic recovery efforts and the intent there was that we understood why we were in the middle of a global pandemic. We also needed to start thinking about what recovery look like, because I think there was a recognition of the inequities that existed even before COVID-19 and also what the COVID-19 pandemic has meant to exacerbate or to really pull out what those challenges have been. And I think we see that in so many ways, you know, there's, you know, the impact has been really on, you know, people who have economic insecurity, you know, those who have no choice but to go to work. Those individuals who don't have the savings to help them whether or make a decision not to not to go into employment. There are people who don't have the ability to work remotely. And of course, I think for women in particular there are a lot of impacted sectors that we've seen that have disproportionate kind of employment of women so services like personal services here in nail salons education. These are some of the hardest hit sectors in the city and and continue to be impacting not only the employee employers but also the people who eventually are the workers many who are women. I think women also, we've been seeing that there is a lot of interconnectedness between just this idea about who are caregivers who have been traditionally caregivers in our communities in our society, and what has that has meant when our schools are closed when our day care centers are closed and their ability to be able to people's abilities and families ability to be able to go out there and work. And so I think overall what we've really seen is that there continues to be an exacerbation of the inequities that we've seen on the economic recovery task force we really want to have an eye towards a recovery that is more equitable. One that builds San Francisco to be better going forward. And so a lot of the things that we're talking about right now include thinking about how is it that we build an economy that is more resilient for the future. So not only how do we help workers to be able to be successful but businesses to be able to be successful. Where do we see systemic issues in terms of people who have opportunities or lack of opportunities to capital. You know, I think someone spoke earlier about the wealth gap that we see. I mean, it's pretty stark when you understand that on average, you know, you know, a typical male might have about $10,000 in their account and a woman might have 3000. But when you start to break that out into people of color, we see that number is even worse. For a single black woman that number is more like $200. And for a single black mother that's even less. So we start to think about when we enter into these situations where we're in a global pandemic when employment is challenging. And we think about whether people have the ability to weather the storm. We're seeing that for many people of color and for women. We don't have the same capacity to weather some of these storms and we're forced to go out there to continue to work and to be in some ways in harm's way during a global pandemic. So I think these are just some of the things that we're seeing from the city level we're paying attention to and we're wanting to make sure that we continue to address that as we go forward. We're about to enter into a phase where we're talking through what are those midterm and long term ideas that help to build resiliency in the city. And you know, one of the things that we're very careful about is to make sure that we're including an embedding equity and all of our conversations. What does it mean when we're thinking about different policy ideas? Who does it help? How does it impact neighborhoods? And is there some kind of disproportionate impact on people of color? We're talking about women and our black communities. These are things that we want to embed in our process as we go forward in terms of thinking about policy. So it's a lot of work, but we do have a great task force that we've pulled together and a lot of people who are putting their energy into thinking about how we should be supporting one another during this time. Yeah, you know, for me my day today at La Cocina really is about trying to find ways to level the playing field. So folks who are traditionally left out of opportunities to build businesses and build wealth for themselves and their family have a chance to do so. And you know, we see obstacles in every single step of the way as we try to work with entrepreneurs. And you know, this seems to me like a perfect time to really think about some radical change that will allow for folks to not only play but thrive and sort of rewrite this sort of, you know, and I'm talking specifically about the food industry, but this industry that is one of the main economic drivers of San Francisco and the Bay Area anyways. You know, and I think that's that's at every step. I mean, I think about, you know, how many restaurants in the Bay Area are owned by immigrant folks who have limited English skills and the fact that the Department of Public Health recently digitized almost all of their permits. So if you don't have both really great computer literacy and a firm handle on English, you know, a lot of the permits are available in many languages, but not all of them. How do you fill out those permits? They don't have a computer down at the at the office of the Department of Public Health. They don't have somebody there to help you. You know, and so it's on nonprofits like La Cocina and different economic development agencies to do the work that frankly should be on the Department of Public Health, you know, shoulders. I think about the difficulty in gaining access to capital for food entrepreneurs. And I think we were talking about that before, right, and the fact that we are constantly having to engage with the same five micro lenders who are great. Don't get me wrong. If that's the only way you can get $100,000 to start a restaurant, well, why not? But it's a highest interest rate for frankly women who we work with who have already proven that they have a viable business, you know, who have been out in the marketplace for six, seven years, who can show profits and diversified revenue streams and all these things. You know, we often have this sort of funny discussion of La Cocina like, well, you know, do we fight for the permit or do we not fight for the permit right when you see a big company like Uber decide that they're just going to throw scooters all over San Francisco without any permits. So why do our women of color, you know, then need to go out and get permits when it seems to be arbitrary, you know, so I do think I think there is at every turn at every angle there are ways for us to think about building equitable systems that allow for everybody, regardless of race, regardless of their economic background, whatever a chance to the very least play if not succeed and what we see a lot cocina is that when you provide people with an opportunity to play overwhelmingly they succeed. Thank you to lean. I have anything to add there. Okay, great. Brandon, I'll hand it back to you then. Well, this is again fantastic and and just just to have all these minds on here because when I think of Jolene's La Cocina when I think of McMullan's I think of community. And one thing that I think this pandemic has really ruptured right is our sense of community and I really believe that joy and being joyful as part of the resistance. So I'm curious to hear more on in your professional role. How are you working to keep to hold on to your community to grow it to take care of your workers. And then just how are you doing with your own stress on getting through the day to day as well. One of the things we've been sort of talking a lot internally at La Cocina is this idea that COVID is such a transactional virus right it requires some sort of human back and forth some sort of real transactional interaction. And that all the work that we do is about transactions, and that usually the folks who are in the front lines of leading transactions are overwhelmingly, you know, folks of color, folks of lower social economic backgrounds. And so that's been sort of an interesting thing to keep on one side while also fighting to find new ways to stay connected. Both, you know, as as the La Cocina community and then with a broader community that all of our entrepreneurs are so excited to serve day in and day out. And it's it's really hard. I mean, I think that's the one thing that we often forget about community that they don't happen organically. It is a lot of work, especially at a place where La Cocina where people come from all over the world. You know, it's really a lot of coming to the table with an open mind and a willingness to learn from one another and an appreciation for the struggle that you see in that human across from you. So it's been a really interesting time to to be in community and to continue to like, you know, fortify our community. Yeah, and I'll agree I think it's, it's hard because I think at a time when we are socially distance and physically separated. You have to make twice the effort to get the same connection, frankly, right. And I think we're seeing that in particular as we're kind of struggling with switching to a new normal in terms of working remotely with my team and so on. And so there's a lot of work that we're trying to do to continue to build connection. But I think as a public official. It's, it's also incredibly hard. I mean, we've done things where, and Jolene's actually going to join me on one of my cooking with Carmen series, where I've been highlighting for Asian Heritage Month, which was last month, the rising kind of APA contributions in our culinary scene. And it was just a fun way to be able to highlight their accomplishments but also to ask local neighborhoods to support their businesses and so we try to build community in those ways. But I, I can't, you know, in spite of kind of the successes and the fun with doing it I can't help but just remember about all the community members that I leave behind when we do it through an online forum, right. There are so many community members that I have no way of engaging with at this moment because they're not online and they they're not going to a lot of my elderly seniors who who I've connected with in the past, whether in person or just to to go and see someone and hold their hand and ask them how they're doing. You can't, you can't really do that right now. And so I think I struggle because there's a huge loss in that personal connection and there's a there is a lot of people we leave behind who just don't have access or ability to tune into a show or to log in or to send an email. And so, you know, I think about that that often. And I think in terms of being a young mother now with a baby at home it is incredibly hard to do to do the same thing that is expected of you to take on even more. Because with the COVID-19 reality the truth is that many of us are working into the evenings, you know after I put Kayleigh to bed where I'm back on with meetings at nighttime like post 830 and so on because that's the only time we can catch to be able to find times and meet to work to talk. And then we're meeting through weekends to. And so I think I struggle now because that that balance is not there. And I think for now that has to be. But, you know, hopefully in time. And we start to regain some some semblance of how we should be interacting in this new space. It's really hard to separate when you're working at home all the time that separation between what is home life versus work and I know there it never it was already hard to begin with and even more blurry as we do this remotely. I would say that the Oakland community, especially the small business owners, I feel like we have become closer than ever. So even though we're social distancing we have really come together to find ways to support one another, especially in the very beginning where we're really gambling and trying to figure out this new normal and our businesses are closed. We really rallied and came together, and we started calling one another texting checking on one another. And there was something that was really Brianna you mentioned before it's like it was something really joyful in that and knowing that you're not in this alone because it was a scary time I think for you know for everyone we're in this global and we, there's so much uncertainty going on but just to know that someone has your back and you can count on someone for, even if it's just, you know, pick up the phone and say hey did you fill out the applications for this like SBA loan and the PPP loans and just talking about those things. I think has been very helpful for me going through this, and also, you know, my team talking to my team every single day, checking in making sure that everyone was okay because, you know, when the when we went into shelter. You know I unfortunately had to lay off a portion temporarily lay off a portion of my team so I went into this mode of wanting to make sure that the store was going to be okay and that my team was going to have a place to come back to once we got out of this. So just knowing that I could lean on the community and my fellow business owners was actually. It was actually really, really nice and then juggling personally I have a four year old I'm a mom to I think I didn't mention that before but I have a four year old, and I was homeschooling him so just trying to juggle homeschooling with coming to the store as much as possible talking to clients dealing with applications for loans, trying to keep the business afloat with my team. It was a big juggle and yeah it was it was it was definitely it was definitely some trying times during that. I do think that it was nice to have the community come together in that in that way with small businesses. I do think that on the community front by the way that women have this superpower. And I was thinking throughout you know I was looking at you know what he really does it like a team and I'm like, okay so I'm there. And again, this is the power of what we can do it's very tactical and tangible but that's what we need right. So, getting people to know your businesses. I'm immediately going to contact sharing go where's your Palo Alto store, you know all this stuff. This is what we need to do so I believe firmly in. I mean, it's not my sole purpose but it's it's pretty close right and that again is me leading by example from my children, just like, you know, my grandmother did for me as the eldest grandchild. But I think it's really, I mean this is how potent it is it's like, bring customers to my restaurant, get your corporate catering catering team to put me on your list. You know, direct people to the store, maybe have your next League of Extraordinary Women meeting with wine in the store. We've done all kinds of stuff like that where we're bringing our consumer companies in. Female founded companies like an LA and saying, no one knows them or can buy their stuff, but we can do it we can host a party and basically bring people with money to the party, where you have your goods so I know it sounds pretty, you know, basic, but I feel like this this lift as you climb DNA in everyone on this call and hopefully a lot of those listening is it's not to say like we're better or worse, we're just different. And we can actually come together in solidarity for each other without feeling, you know, like it's a competition right we can feel vulnerable we can feel pissed off we can feel angry. And that's to me what is visualized in all the protests this year. It's like every race, every gender every background every generation is represented. And so I that's why I feel good about the future, but also, it's not okay to just ignore a whole class of small business owners, which is why we got very very invested in that earlier on. And we've basically put together hundreds of thousand dollars in a pot to like help founders apply for grants emergency grants, so that they can keep going. We processed billions of dollars in SBA PPP. And you can believe it like every single person in this company fought for that, like they fought for that money on behalf of their clients and so it's again, I feel blessed that women have that in the DNA. Kind of disappointed that we kind of still have to do it alone, right, it's, it's, it's tough. But I'm, I'm inspired that look when when the going gets tough, you know, the tough get going and we're really showing people how it's done and as I said before I think we're at a tipping point. But look, I'm Eliana Sherry I keep, you know, calling you out Jolyne same just really tangible stuff which is, Hey, Claire, you seem to know a lot of people who like to party. Yes, I do. I'm Irish and directing them intentionally towards what you guys have. That's going to put money in your in your pocket right so I feel like this is on all of us but it's something that we do naturally. We're not trying to bring each other down we're trying to rise each other, everybody up, you know, this is great. Again, it's that sense of community that that Sherry spoke to you as well coming together and ensuring that everyone's doing okay, checking in and what do you need. Jolyne, can you speak a little bit towards the different things that you've been doing at the bar to bring together your community as well. Yeah, um, you know, I feel like I had to use all my creative juices to like think of like how we're going to stay afloat for a little bit let people know we're still here. Since I've been an event producer for over 10 years. I took my event and I threw it on Instagram live. So we do an event every Friday we stream from nine to midnight and every everyone that I've worked with like dancers performers DJs we do a little party every Friday. So I've connected that with opening the barn and restaurant on the weekends and tying that together saying pick up your your drinks and food and join us for the party on Friday night. If you're hungover we have hunger like good food on Saturday to help you out and then Sunday brunch like your brunch food and enjoy some sun or whatever it is and so just really tying in like to a story with all of the food that we're making like like me my mother like me a bunch of dumplings, you know, and we'll take videos of it like hey this is like what we're doing to try to stay afloat like buy these. One of my chefs from Hawaii she's like let's do a Hawaiian theme thing. So we'll film the whole thing and just like share a part of like the process of that and a little background and why it's so special. So, yeah, that's, you know, just doing all the things even down to rainbow pancakes to to put a feeling to to the food, you know. Yeah. I'm really inspired by the creativity and kind of action orientation that I've been hearing and I would love to get a little bit more of that so my question to you all I think is, what are some actions, some policies, some systems that we can support now that would be the resilience of businesses owned by people who experienced these structural barriers we've been talking about so women, gender non conforming people people of color, what can we do now to help folks who own businesses thrive during this crisis and then after the crisis and beyond. So we're going to pass it back to you to start things like policies as in it could be policies it could be systems it could just be like a really tangible action that we can do now to make sure that people have experienced these structural barriers to success and entrepreneurship can can thrive now can thrive beyond this time. I mean, I guess the next thing is outdoor seating right now that's what I'm looking for for my place you know there's, I don't get much sun on one side of my place and also it's not very warm once it hits like five or six in San Francisco. So heat lamps are super expensive and and the permitting process is is kind of wild to me. So I'm scared to to buy all this outdoor furniture for it to fail. You know all these policies. I know that you know things are uncertain like things can change day by day. You know, but that's, that's what I'm afraid of that the whole sidewalking and even if I do buy all the furniture and we have to keep everyone six feet apart. Am I going to break even even and how long will that last make sense. Thank you. I'm a sister to I'd love to pass it to you what sort of policies systems actions do you think we need now so that people can thrive. Yeah, I think I mean we've been thinking a lot about this and I've been thinking a lot about about some of these areas because I think there are some of the immediate things that we should be thinking about at this moment and then some of the things that we I think are structural things that we want to be thinking about for the future. You know, in terms of right now my the area where I'm really focused is on this question about reopening and how do we support businesses and so I think to Jolene's point. One of the things that we recognize we need to do is to really cut red tape and to try to be as flexible as possible to allow the creativity that businesses have to be able to do things in a safe way. Right. So, you know, I think to Jolene's point one of the things that that I'm constantly advocating for is to say, if we create these policies or make these kind of interim exceptions we've got to make it for a good amount of time so that if people make those investments in furniture or other things. It's not as if it's going to go away in a month. Right, because what what is the point, what is the point in that or making that kind of huge capital investment if it's not going to really can out or economically work out for businesses to do. You know, in addition to that, you know, in terms of the economic recovery task force work, we've been really pushing to say, you know, how do we recognize that there are there are different structural pieces to how the economy comes together that we need to consider in order to support businesses now and women owned businesses so some of the things that we cared a lot about to make sure that we were moving was to say how do we make sure that we reopen childcare and school summer programming and so on so that we're allowing the economy to also open up. Those were things that we really considered in terms of immediate. We thought a lot about the types of sectors that we were opening so in particular saying, given all the the state's guidance. What kinds of things can we open now and can we fast track or move forward. Those areas that we know are lower risks that we know we can safely open but also are disproportionately impacting women and people of color. We've been talking a lot about some of those things. I know I think this this question about access to capital is incredibly important we need to consider how we can do that in this interim and in the long term. And then I think in particular we also need to really be thinking about things like, how do we make sure that we have health resilience as well do we have the systems in place to allow workers to be able to take care of themselves and work during this period of, you know, having COVID-19 still with us. And I think, you know, in terms of longer term issues that we really should be thinking about I know that Clara spoke about access to capital I think we need to still make sure that we do that. Because women I think have and I think Sherry also mentioned this we don't have the same level of funding or investment that that men do that is something that we need to try to fix on a structural place. We're getting systems of strong childcare, making sure that we have flexibility in our workplace and schedules, making sure that we have an ability to help people to build wealth, whether that's through home ownership or entrepreneurship or other areas is something that I think we need to be thinking about for the long term. And then I think, you know, people have talked a lot about this but what are those sectors that are growing what are those sectors, in terms of employment that have resilience, and our women equally represented in those areas if not how do we support that. How do we make sure we continue to push for women to be at the table, both in decision making at private corporations and boards as well as in government. So I think all of these kind of big things are things that we should be thinking about and things we should be pursuing because, again, they're sort of the immediate policy items and things that we can pursue to try to help alleviate some of the pain. But we also need to be thinking about what what investments do we need to be making at this moment in time, in order to say that 10 years from now, five years from now 20 years from now we're going to be in a different place and where we are now. Thank you. What about you you have any thoughts about this policy systems actions we can support now. Yeah, I mean, so many. I mean, I couldn't agree more with everything that Jolene said about sort of the challenges that the restaurant industry faces and in sort of deciding how to reopen and which sort of reopening opportunities to take advantage of versus which to let slide. Well, San Francisco has a lot to learn from other cities that are already doing this right like thinking about, can we can the city and county in San Francisco be better for mobile food vendors, which is a permit that is incredibly difficult to get. It's really I mean it takes sometimes as many as eight to 10 months to get this to get a permit for a private property. And I think the cities like Austin or Portland that have a thriving restaurant scene and a thriving mobile food scene, and both can sort of cohabitate and and and nobody has to suffer as a result. I think about outdoor dining and looking to so many places in Europe that have had, you know, tons of outdoor dining and where, you know, and we see I think pretty clearly that health and sanitation, you know, under under normal times is is not an issue so can we think about these these ways to sort of incentivize the continued growth of the food industry. You know, I think, I think assessor shoe said it correctly that there's going to have to be give on both sides both from the city being more flexible as to what can be done and then also business owners and restaurants on a restaurant owners in particular. But I think there are many, many things that that we can do I think it's, you know, restaurants don't exist in a bubble so we have to look beyond that I want to think about a restaurant or the restaurant industry most restaurants run a profit margin of between seven to 10%. There's very few businesses that operate with those slim profit margins so if we're talking about operating at 20% capacity and doing outdoor dining and having to take extra precautions for coven related reasons. What is the profitability of that business so then what can we do to ensure that we can mitigate some of the cost of operating that business you know a la cocina for us. That has meant a full on massive campaign on rent abatement at our shirt commercial kitchen page space nobody's paying rent right now because we think it's ludicrous believe that people can do so when they've lost 80% of their businesses. In some cases even more, and then for all of our restaurants owners we have pushed conversations with their landlords around rent abatement so it you know, but obviously those landlords also have pressures and they have mortgages and so on and so forth to answer for their they're running their own businesses so when we begin a conversation more long term when I think the expectation is that 2021 is going to be a year of breaking 2021 will be a year of breaking even in 2022 might be a year at least for the restaurant industry of really returning to some profitability. The other thing I think about and we touched on it already is is access to market right I think about San Francisco has a women's entrepreneurship fund, which has been a really phenomenal thing to $5,000 grant for a business owner. They need to however show profitability for 12 months prior. And you know for anyone starting a young business I mean if you have a more mature business $5,000 would be great but it's not revolutionary and for a small business. It's sometimes really hard to show 12 consecutive months of profitability. So how can we lessen some of those requirements that will solve for some of these issues of needing to spend $3 or $4,000 on equipment in order to offer a sidewalk service or whatever the case might be. So I mean I'm excited that we can come out of this with a better industry and an industry that's more fun. I for a long time have said that the dining scene in San Francisco is a little boring because it costs so much money to get into it. That nobody has the leeway to be creative. That's too high of a risk to take. So you know maybe we can mitigate some risk and really incentivize some creativity and come up with something great. I like that. I hope Emeliana and Joeen as you have different ideas about some of those concrete things that we can do. I hope you'll feed that to us on the task force so that we can really pull those ideas together and really advocate for some of those changes. You mentioned Emeliana that young businesses or newer businesses have trouble accessing some of this capital and I believe that women are overrepresented in young businesses. The good news about that is it means women are starting lots of businesses, right? But that if they're overrepresented in young and small businesses, that makes those businesses more vulnerable, especially during times like this. Sherry or Claire, I wanted to open it up to you to see if either of you wanted to respond to that same question. Well, I agree with everyone that just spoke but one thing that I think that we can do as an immediate thing is really sort of understanding our buying power and really being intentional about how we're actually spending our dollars. So if we decide that we want to spend with big box businesses, then, you know, we need to really understand like who's sitting at those tables. Who are the people at the boards? Who are the executives at the table? But if you decide that you want to spend with small businesses, be very intentional about it. And if you cannot afford to, it's really, you know, sharing about those businesses with your friends or sharing through social media. I mean, all of those things really help. We saw that in the last two weeks when we had, you know, so many people just shouting us out and saying support McMullen and we really felt that and we felt it with sales. So all of those things really help small businesses is being very intentional about how you're spending your dollars and knowing exactly where you're spending them. And I know that that's something that I'm very thoughtful about is, you know, I want the businesses around here and Oakland to succeed so I'm going to support those businesses versus, you know, any larger companies, Amazons or any of the other businesses. And also some things that for us just also just thinking about flexibility so there are going to be people who are working from home more, more now than ever before so thinking about my team and what their needs are so some of the people who are working from like what are some of the, some of their needs and what we can do to support them. Access to capital I talked about just a moment ago and I think this is one of the big obstacles for small businesses, especially during this time it's really figuring out, you know, once we reopen, we know that it's not going to be the same. But how do we get through the next 18 months and working with, you know, our landlords and we've been really lucky where we've had a lot of support from the people who own the building with rate deferments and rent abatements. But I know not everyone is fortunate in that sense so it's, how do we support small businesses who aren't getting those so that in 18 months they're still going to be here. So I think those are real like top of mind things for for us. Thank you, Claire, do you feel like jumping in. Well, as always, I have a lot to say, but there's a lot, there's a lot of passion in my heart. I agree with you look access to talent access to capital access to customers. These are the things we talk about in startup land I just posted in the chat if anyone's interested. You know the results of some of the research I said we did and I'm again proud to work with a company that does that. It's just the tip of the iceberg. Okay, so I think what I've noticed is that people again aren't like they're not okay with the status quo. For instance, when I moved here I had no credit and no one even though I had like a job at Microsoft. I felt that the kind of just, you know, inherent sexism like I would go into say a mattress door. This is true. And they would say, Oh, do you want to bring your husband to make a decision on this because it's really expensive and I went. I'm really hanging out with the 1225 year old, you know, massage therapist so I don't I don't think he's available right now. But there's just all these blockers which are again systemic and of course biased and just all the isms right. I feel like people have got the memo. I think the cities, like as Carmen said, understand what they have to do to get rid of red tape to make it much easier for us to say okay, let's start something, build it and remove the obstacles that are frankly just, you know, no On the capital side, I feel like there's going to be a kind of a maybe bit of a dichotomy. I think there's going to be those who really embrace the power of small businesses in the United States and globally. And then there's going to be those that maybe just continue to go around stakeholder and shareholder value. I don't think that is sustainable. I don't think they understand the market. I don't think they understand their audience. I think people are way more in tune to your point, Sherry and Ameliana people want to spend their money on things that they know really support growth, integrity. All the things I think we used to take for granted no one really told us about but we've learned the hard way. So, Honestly, that's kind of the saving grace is people like us who give a shit and basically want to make sure that all of our buying, you know buying power spending power is directed towards things that really, You know, fundamentally make a big difference to, you know, your paycheck, your ability to pay for your education and have your child go to school, your ability to pay for childcare when you need to work. All of that it's very integrated but I see that there's kind of a dichotomy in the market. Thankfully, most people are on that side, which is to look at progress and being very progressive in FinTech and finance is actually pretty hard, but it's extraordinarily rewarding. And so I'm proud to be a contrarian and a troublemaker at the very heart of this and as I said, I really think people are now listening they've got the memo. They understand they can't operate the way they used to. And it isn't just about capital as we said right, it's not about you just saying I have a business I need money. You won't attract any talent to come work with you and for you. If they don't see you as a viable business as a business owner and a lady boss. So all these things go hand in hand. And I'm sick of seeing single digits. The single digits drive me nuts. You know, I don't want to leave the planet with single digits on all of this stuff that you'll see. But I feel like with you guys using your voice with the policy changes the commitments from people like Carmen. And the commitment from private sector who quite frankly may have been guilty of just operating on autopilot. I think this is actually poised for real change and we got to bring it all to bear. Thank you for that. First of all, I just want to say I really enjoy how we're already making progress on here. You have your list that we're giving to Carmen's office. I know Vivian was in there saying here's where you can submit Claire's going to throw a party with Sherry and Emilia and Jolene like, again, why are you passing it along? I'm ready for it. And with keeping the solutions in mind, I want to hear from everyone, you know, you, as we come out of this, you're in charge. So what does a feminist economic framework look like coming out? So we have clearly seen the structure that we are in doesn't work. It hasn't been working for a long time for a lot of people. What do we need to ensure is in place as we actually recover and make sure that everyone can recover and thrive more than anything. So you saved the easy question for now. So much. I mean, I think for me it comes down to women represented in every single step of the chain and all kinds of women. I mean, I think that's really key, right? We need trans women, black women, Latinx women. We just need to see a true mix of representation of women across every single sector, you know, changing policy, leading businesses, you know, just to me it comes down to that. What I see in my day today and what keeps me totally inspired and coming back to La Cocina refreshed every day is, you know, that women bring a different perspective into the workplace. You know, I mean, if you're thinking about the food business, it's really, it's a hierarchical system, you know, based on, you know, a brigade, top-down leadership, top-down approach, abusive, you know, all the things. And it's not to say that women aren't perfect and capable of perpetuating some of that. You know, I mean, I know that working in that system, I at moments was guilty of that. You sort of had to if you didn't want to be fully singled out. But I also know that, you know, when there's true mix of leadership, people who have had economic hardship, people who haven't, people who have been victims of domestic violence, people who have never worked in the food industry and people who come from all the corners of the world, then suddenly you start to build something that is more accepting, that is a little softer, and that is never short on hustle. I mean, that is like, for me, entrepreneurship equals hustle and survival. And that is something that women, particularly women of color and women from immigrant communities are like full of. And so that to me is sort of it. I absolutely agree with you. I think just, I think generally just supporting women, we know that when we're supporting women businesses, we know that we're supporting people who are going to take care of the community. We know that women are going to hire diverse teams. We know that women are going to hustle and make things happen and do whatever we can to take care of our families, our team members, the people who are, you know, the people that we want to thrive, we're going to make sure that they're taken care of. It's just in our nature as women, it's just, it's how we're built. So I know that I feel very strongly that we will be okay coming out of all of this going into 2021, we will be taken care of and we will be okay. We're just resilient as women and that's part of the beauty of, you know, being a woman. Could we arrange to get t-shirts printed with that on it? Yes. I need to see that in the mirror every day. I think a framework that I think about in terms of the elements that that I would like to see and I think it reflects a lot of the comments that I've heard today is that, you know, as a community that women are intentional, we're intentional about where we spend, and what we want to invest in and who we want to support. I think underpinning is to make sure that women are decision makers at all places. We're part of the conversation. We're part of policy decision making that we have equal access to capital and to careers and opportunities. And that we continue to really support workplaces that support families as a whole. And as part of all of that, you know, I'm a person who always wants to think about how do you make, how do you ensure that people are accountable, right? And I think you can't be accountable unless you really track things. So how many loans are going out to women, right? How many applications came in from women? You know, did we do outreach? Did we, you know, what are those metrics? What are those numbers that really start to point to whether we're making progress or not? And unless we sort of get to this place where we actually can track those things, it's hard to hold people accountable. You can tell anecdotes all you want and people will do, people will make programs that kind of help to alleviate part of it. It may sound good. It may look good. But ultimately, are we actually even getting there? Are we making progress? We won't really know unless we really start to see and track what does entrepreneurship look like. Are women being equally turned down or approved for loans? I mean, these are all things that I think we need to think systemically and put into place so that we can start to get to, I think, really equalities what we're asking for. Let's put that on a t-shirt. I like it. What about equity is what we're asking for? That points to the money. No, I love it. Claire, you were saying how important it is that people got the memo for me, you know, wearing even my professional hat. Okay, you got the memo. I want to make sure that you're accountable and you're actually acting on it now as well. That's where I am. Jolene, is there anything you'd like to add on what you want to see for this recovery? I want to see more representation of everything across the board. For me, a lot of other LGBT bars and restaurants and such, they're known to be all men that go there. If you go down to the Castro every single venue, I would go into every single one and count how many women are in each bar. And so say Friday night at 1030, there's five people in one place, 10 people here, seven people there, and this and that. So they're all spread out. So my goal was to define one bar in the Castro and do a woman's night so that they would all be in the same place on a Friday night, you know. And so after I opened my space, I've had other owners come to the bar and ask me, Wow, there are men and women in here. And it's very diverse. How, how can I make my bar that way? Like just look at them kind of dumbfounded, like hire them, like hire the women, hire the POC people, like that's like, if you are about it, be about it and hire them. And that's it, you know, so same as the higher ups everywhere in the city, everyone needs to be about it. Is that, is that hard? I think that that's a great point is folks, you know, when they talk about affirmative reaction or quotas, or like, oh, you're focusing too much on people of color or women or black women is what they don't understand is when you give that person power when you give them the access to opportunity, how inclusive they are and how they bring so many more people with them. Right. And it's not that it's not like I'm going to bring the person who looks like me, or the what you know the the person who I went to school with I'm just going to bring my buddies along. It's really inclusive. And it's because they want the best because we are hustlers every day, like you said a million. And that was probably my favorite quote if you're going to be about it. If you're going to be about it. What is it? What did you say, Jolene? If you're all about it, be about it. We need that one on a shirt too. We're gonna have a lot of shirts. We have been getting some really great questions and we're going to go to those soon. So if you're in the audience listening in and you have a question please go ahead and submit it via the chat we'd love to see it. Before we kick off into that section, I would just love to give you all a chance to ask any questions of each other maybe one if anybody has anybody on the panel has a question they'd like to ask other panelists or any panelists in particular. You all have some really incredible knowledge and expertise and probably spend great questions for each other. So anybody want to jump in? I'm going to just jump. So Carmen, I'd love to know what is the one thing that you want to get done this year that you're not going to rest basically until it's done. And then Sherry second one for you. Where is your place in Palo Alto because I'm going to come over. So the one thing that I want to get done is this work on the Economic Recovery Task Force. You know it sounds, it's daunting because it's wide it's buried and we just, you always feel like you're missing something here. So if, if I could build with all of the folks who are on it and with community, this framework that is equitable going forward about how San Francisco should pursue policy to have in a way that we're able to support our local businesses, our, our, our communities are LGBT communities to be able to have more equitable outcomes. If I could do that, if I could put that groundwork in place and to lay out those concepts, I'd be happy. So, enough to say that you achieve any of those things with simply putting something on paper. But when you start that conversation and you embed these principles of equity into your decision making and into how you think about things. It's hard to ignore and people have to respond to it and, and you, you can move forward and you can take a step forward. Right. So if I could do that and really have a diversity of voices and have that be part of our framework as a city. I'd be proud of that step that we took. And my stores and we are planning to reopen Palo Alto July around July 1. And it's in town and country. Oh my goodness. That's a few minutes for me. Oh, I'm so excited. Okay, I'm going to come find you. I'm going to use my t-shirt with hashtag women who hustle. And I just want you to know as, as a fellow patron, I did post your, your website in the chat. And I actually am on a WhatsApp thread with, with Claire and I shared it, you know, with her too and I was like, Sarah's having this amazing sale and I went crazy. So sorry. That's a good news. No, we love you. Thank you. You've always supported us. You're, you're fantastic. It's all about, you know, women who amplify each other. Good, good stuff comes to that. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. I mean, I have another question for you. Wondering if you guys in the city have, I don't know, some sort of a cabinet of, you know, folks from a host of different industries that you're sort of talking to as you, as you think about, you know, what this next phase of reopening our city is going to look like and whatnot. Yeah. No, I think it's a, it's a great question. We have our task force is wide and buried. And so we have a lot of people who are on there who has been, who had been giving feedback. But actually Brianna and I were actually talking earlier about why it was really important for us to be really intentional about embedding and making sure that we have women's voices at the table and how do we bring that together. And so if you are interested, I'd love to convene a group to really pull together some thinking about how, how we do this in an intentional way and to make sure we don't forget that voice. And I think, I think I could really use some help to make sure that we're not overlooking something. We're getting, we're getting so many calls from so many different industries and sectors. So we can foresee how easy it is to just get lost in all of that noise and I just want to make sure that we don't forget and lose this opportunity. So if you are interested in helping us to pull something like this together. I think with you and Brianna and others that we can do that. Yeah, I'm in 100% Okay, I'm going to pivot to one from our audience. And I touched on this a little bit earlier how, you know, I've shopped at Sherry's store, I ordered my box from La Cocina. And this question comes from my fellow commissioner, Sophia who is a huge patron and fan of Jolene's as well. So beyond shopping, beyond dollars, what are other ways that we can as as residents in this community, make sure that your businesses stay open. What do you need from us to do that we can do today to help you all. Well, I think outside of, you know, spending with us it's really just talking to your friends about our businesses. And even if you can't afford right now to buy something really just sharing through your social channels and any support in that way is really so valuable. Like I said before we saw it so much just in the last few weeks when people really stepped up and started posting about so many black businesses and so many black businesses saw record numbers. Bigger weeks than they had in months. So it's helpful. So even if you're not personally buying it's really just spreading, spreading the word, and especially businesses that you really care about that align with you as a person in your values and you really care about the people who work there. It's, it really means so much. You know, there's, there's also a ton of volunteering opportunities to be had, you know, definitely with with our nonprofit La Cocina but also with a lot of other economic development agencies in and around San Francisco. So if what you have to give is not going to a business and supporting them financially. And you have some sort of expertise, you know, a lot of people would be happy to have those whether it's around marketing or operations or whatever the case might be, you know, there's that I know a lot of the work that we do a lot of seeing on the technical assistance that we offer would not be possible if we didn't have the best network of volunteers that we do. That is a great ending your expertise that is also very valuable and helpful. Jolene, are there any other ways we can help? Yeah, just, you know, spreading the word letting any of the marketing team that we have, you have, you know, like just letting people know, maybe even listing all of the women owned businesses in San Francisco and really spreading that I feel like people know that they need to support them but they don't know exactly which one in San Francisco and the Bay Area are women owned, you know, a little more just spreading that knowledge. Thank you. We have a policy question, New America is a policy shop after all and so we have a question about whether and how federal and state loans and recovery programs have worked so we'd love to hear from any of the business owners directly if you've been engaging with any of these programs that they worked, how, how, how not. And if there are gaps that are existing, what can people do to help fill those I think that we've answered a lot of questions about like how, how folks can help support businesses. But if there's anything else you've got in ways that federal or state programs kind of are leaving gaps that are can be filled, we'd love to hear about that. And I, you know, like letting us know like when and where and how, you know, I feel like I applied for it and I was like, I didn't hear anything for a long time and I was pretty much in tears thinking that I was going to close. And then the next day, I got an email, you know, and I'm thinking like other businesses they actually closed and maybe it was still in the process and they would have gotten that loan like a day after, you know, that's just timing a little more a little more communication to us, the timeline. I would say my experience. I felt like I was really on top of things when I was applying for all of the federal loans. And I have a large bank that I that I think with for a very long time so I felt comforted in knowing that okay I've been with this, this large bank for a long time. And surely I will. This will be a pretty simple process for me I'm going to turn in my paperwork I had it all together. And we weren't funded the first time which was really frustrating because, you know, to your point. I was just waiting so just sort of that uncertainty, wondering if you're going to get funding and then not really hear anything and then the next thing you hear is that all of these larger companies have received millions of dollars, and that the PPP ran out the first time. So for me that learning was, you know, maybe I need to spend, put some of my money into smaller banks, because the smaller banks what I've told what I was told is that the smaller banks were really really working hard to fund the small businesses very quickly. And friends that I friends who have small businesses who went through smaller banks they were able to get funded the first time around. So there was a real learning with that. And also just knowing that there's still a lot of money available so I think there are a lot of black small businesses who have not still received the PPP loans, but I think it just, we need to get the information out there. So that businesses know that there is still billions of dollars available to go to small businesses. So it's really like giving them the information and making sure that they can apply. If they can't apply through their banks, there are tons of lenders. Like getting, you know, a list of lenders to people who really don't know how to go through this process. It was a very time consuming process, a very emotional process I think for a lot of people. Can I add to that? I think when the PPP loans were first put out there, we, I mean, everyone saw that first wave was over subscribed like in a week and a half, right? And we think about all those things that need to be put in place so that businesses can access that capital. It was incredibly disappointing and I think really heartbreaking because some of the businesses that we would most want to be able to access those loans and programs, they just couldn't come online fast enough. And so it goes back to this question about, you know, this loan became available. If you had relationships with banks or if you could navigate a website and find out which lenders were open and still lending and taking applications, if you could figure out a way to submit an application online because remember a lot of banks were also not open in person to be able to assist people either. Then you were in a slightly better off situation than I think for many of us, a lot of the immigrant communities who just couldn't, you couldn't overcome the language barrier and on top of that, sort of the digital divide in the online kind of component. And we also didn't have a system in place like systemically citywide to be able to handle like that whole rush of people who needed technical assistance that had language competencies and other things. So I think looking back on it, especially as a public official, it was such a frustrating thing because a lot of us were just making calls to banks and saying, why aren't you opening up loans? And can't you help? And can't you, you know, isn't there more that you can do? And, you know, we hit, you know, kind of like, you know, walls. And so I think it gave us a lot of pause to kind of say, well, how do we structure this? And it's incredibly hard because with the pandemic like this, it came so suddenly and so abruptly. I don't know that any of us would have been prepared to expect that we were going to see a pandemic or something like this happen and the level of need and that intensity of need and that initial. And so, you know, it gives us instructions for in the future what we may want to do and how we want to set up and make sure that our community partners are set up and ready to go and all those things. But it was, it was really a heartbreaking, I think, experience to kind of go through it, even on the city side when you see the businesses that we couldn't help through that process in that phase. Yeah, I mean, we saw that hugely at La Cocina, I personally filled out about eight PPP applications with different entrepreneurs, many of whom fit Carmen's description, you know, you know, they don't have a ton of computer literacy skills and, you know, it was insane and all of them initially submitted with their banks institutions that they've been banking for free with for years. None of them got a PPP loan. Among those I include La Cocina, who is a nonprofit and we submitted our application with our bank, which is a major bank and also one of our major funders and we didn't get the PPP loan either. And then we paired up with another economic development agency in San Francisco who paired up with a smaller bank and we're able to then through that partnership get 13 PPP loans processed in the second round. I think one thing that that is huge is that, you know, if you're not, if you don't have legal status in this country that doesn't apply to you and you don't actually have to have legal status in this country to own a business. And so many undocumented immigrants run phenomenal businesses that all of us get to benefit from every day. Amazing. And so, you know, those are for all those folks that there wasn't an answer and then I think back of the first round of PPP loans well probably the second because not very many small businesses got loans in that first round but you know now that the time frame for forgiveness has been extended from 8 to 24 weeks. How many of those folks have already spent the vast majority of that money based on the original guidelines so it's, you know, I still can't wrap my head around exactly how forgiveness works and I've gone to I don't know how many webinars and I don't know how many workshops and and I'm having to advise people on on how to best spend this money when really I don't think anybody knows exactly how it's going to work. And so it's, it's really, really frustrating. And not sufficient, but I guess better than nothing. I'm sorry you had that experience I mean. Yeah, I mean I physically worked again night and day with hundreds of others to get manually processed right because the systems did not work and he try and went down multiple times the government system. It's so lovely when you do have someone say I got enough to keep, you know, basically furlough my my folks and bring them back. If you ever need advice on that loan forgiveness, we have some experts but I think that wave, the first and second wave were very difficult second wave was better because we had our eyes open I think. But there is another wave I hear coming. So I would urge everybody to stay close to, you know, the news and some of the bills that get submitted because really, I can't talk for like in terms of data but I think a lot of the money did go to much bigger companies right to to as a form of bailout, we may name it never see that data. But I think again anecdotally, we need to do a much better job representing women owned businesses in this part of the world. And that's what we can do. That's what we have in our scope. That's what we can make a difference with and it's really tangible so if any of you guys want to talk to a banker do not reach out to me but if you reach out to me I will find you one and their bankers you really care and they know the system and I'm proud of what we were able to get for our first wave. It's remarkable. And just one last kind of thought is, I was most proud when I heard that our CEO and our president was actually calling people who did apply and said okay technically it might be eligible for this but do you really need it. I'm very proud to see that degree of again integrity questioning for firms that are you know venture capital backed much bigger. And again it's not to dispute that they're not eligible are entitled to this. But if you take this you're taking it away from four or six 10 other businesses. And I'm very proud of the fact that they picked up the phone and they weren't shy about making that cool. Thank you for that and I want to welcome our newest panelists to the call as well. So excited to have her on. I'm running a bit over so I'm going to do a very quick wrap up and just again extend my thanks, my gratitude to each of the panelists into the audience for your words of wisdom and inspiration for us to keep going to continue to be resilient. I remember some of our call to action. Again, invest in women. And there should be leadership of women at all levels. So, Jolene again I'm going to mess it up a little bit but it was if you're about it be about it. Right, let's let's go just do it. And shop small business. And if you don't have the money that's okay. It's also about letting other people know. So, giving that name recognition to the businesses in your community that are small business and owned by women as well. So I'd like to extend thanks again to everyone for participating for hanging in there I know this was originally scheduled earlier this month. And again we rolled with it because this life that we are currently in this reality changes every single moment. And we just continue to move on and thrive. So thank you for that. Many thanks to the Commission on the status of women for making this happen and to everyone at New America for also your blood sweat and tears on and flexibility to get this up here. So thank you again and I hope everyone has a wonderful night. Looking forward to our reunion party. Thank you. And those t-shirts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to take part and giving me this opportunity to get inspired by all you fantastic women entrepreneurs so onwards. Onwards and upwards. Thank you. Thanks everybody stay safe.