 excited about this. And again, I'm Marissa Guananja, Program Officer at the WK Kellogg Foundation and joined by Pamela Alexander, Director of Community Development at the Ford Motor Company Fund. Michelle Errington, State and Local Government Affairs at Horizon, and David Jakubowski, CEO and co-founder at Eureka. So I'm not going to go deep into our panelists bios as we're short on time and we want to dive right in, but please make sure to check out their bios on the website. And let's go in the order that I introduced you all, if that's okay. So it'll be Pamela, Michelle and David. And just wanting to hear about how you and the organizations that you are representing are thinking about this moment and using this moment to create positive change and support a just and inclusive economy. So Pamela, I'll hand it off to you. Thank you and good morning everyone. Thank you, Marissa, for moderating today. And these times are I'm with Ford Motor Company Fund, which for those of you who aren't as familiar, is the philanthropic arm of the motor company. We invest globally in more than 50 countries, primarily in programs and supporting nonprofits around social mobility. I'm passionate about social mobility. You know, if you're born in the bottom 20%, you have a 4% chance of making it to the top. That's not an acceptable number. So a lot of the programming that we do has been and will continue to be built around social mobility. In the past few weeks with COVID and the social justice issues that have been very prominent around the world, for us at Ford, it's something that we've been doing for a while. We've been invested in a program called Men of Courage, Ford Men of Courage that we started five years ago in anticipation of an response to issues around perceptions around African American men and that dialogue. So when you ask Marissa, what are we doing in light of the current crises and what's going on in the world? As it relates to COVID, you know, that hit our world very quickly. And the immediate response was what can we do now? Now, now, now, now, what can we do? And of course, a lot of that was just immediate needs and food and things like that. And we've taken like a now near far strategy to that. And then the midst of COVID, of course, we have the social justice issue. For us, we've been invested in these programs in a while. So it's not about money. And it's not about a check. Words matter. And money is important. But for us, it's really about continuing to do what we've been doing for many, many years around Men of Courage and around a lot of our programs, which are all about access and opportunity. As the previous speaker mentioned, you can't talk about racial equity without talking about economic equity. So our areas of focus, especially right now are expanding what we're doing in the areas of racial and social equity, but also focusing on those economics because you can't you can't divide the two. Thanks, Pamela. Michelle, can I hand it over to you? Hi, good morning, everybody, or good afternoon. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to be here. You know, around the conversation in regards to what Verizon is doing, it's once again what we've always been doing. When COVID-19 hit, as you can imagine for a telecommunications company, we saw a huge increase in our network. Everyone's working from home and now homeschooling. So one thing that highlight that really was highlighted for us was the digital divide. It's an issue that we've always worked on, but it really came into play and the request for access in rural areas, even here in the city, where I am in Atlanta, in regards to access to devices, technology, and hotspots. And it's something we've been committed to. Verizon has Verizon innovative labs across the country. And what we do is we go to title one schools in the middle school areas, and we work one-on-one by providing devices, technology, and support in order to build a next generation of tech leaders. You know, we would love to have it everywhere in every city around the country, but it's a star. It's hundreds of schools. And it's something that we continue to work on. We continue to support our frontline workers, our healthcare workers, and we knew how important this time was. When we saw the increase in demand, Verizon rose up to really address those issues. And we will continue to do this. Beyond COVID-19, we know that we have to work to continue to bridge the digital divide. That's lobbying our lawmakers as well and helping us to address those gaps and doing more within our local communities. Around the issues of social justice and racial inequity, Verizon has always been at the forefront. I've been here for about six months now, and I've been blown away even before everything that's really just this happened with Verizon's commitment to social justice. So Verizon is committed to lobbying on both state and federal levels across the political aisles in regards to expunging criminal records. We sponsor a political criminal justice series. And Verizon has always done that. In February, we had a huge Black History Month program featuring Congresswoman Lucy McBeth. She came to speak. But we also talked about a minority male leadership program that Verizon has implemented here to get Verizon employees, minority males, to the next level. Now beyond, I guess, the pandemic within the pandemic that we are absolutely safe in being here in Atlanta, being on the ground, our company has committed $10 million to racial and social economic and social justice organizations. But these are organizations we've always supported, the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Urbanly, we've always worked with these organizations. And now our conversation has continued. I'm so appreciative of our CEO, Hans, that our conversation has continued about how we continue to do this each and every day and on the ground how we're going to support local organizations and make a real true impact. Thanks, Michelle. I'm David. I'll hand it over to you. Sure. About four years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting a woman who many of you may know, Melissa Bradley. And I began to volunteer with her as she began to, frankly, educate me about the digital divide, about the access divide. And so I became a mentor and she asked me to help three women of color raise capital. All three had outstanding businesses that on the surface I looked at and thought, geez, this is frankly going to be easy. I've raised a lot of money. I've done a number of startups. I have a lot of connections in the venture capital world. And Melissa asked me to work with these three women and help them raise money. And my experience was shocking and frankly disgusting. I brought them in. I made introductions. Every one of the VCs had some impact fund initiative that they plastered all over their website and on PowerPoint. And I brought them women. I brought them women in. I had worked with them. I knew their pitches. I knew their business was cold. And these were all fundamentally strong, growing companies that would check every box. That experience and the answer that they got was the worst possible answer you could get from a venture capitalist, which is I really, they all got the same answer. I really like your business. And I'd be interested in getting in around if you had somebody else who was the lead investor. That's worse than a no. A no says, and you can ask questions about a no. And a no you can learn from and you can grow and evolve your business in a pitch. That frankly says, I don't know you. I don't trust you. And I want somebody else that I know to trust you before I'm willing to trust you. And I knew exactly what that answer was. And what I found myself having to do was go have a series of hard conversations with my white male counterparts in the investment community. And I didn't like the answers that I got. Needless to say, this was not a surprise to Melissa Bradley. And that began a friendship in a journey where I found my role as the ally to begin to break the access barriers. So much so that I decided to dedicate the next phase of my career on it. And I started a company with Melissa called Eureka. Eureka is a community of people set up specifically to do that, to bridge the gaps and to create allies across two primary vectors. One, getting access to capital. Every month we bring a new set of minority entrepreneurs into the seats of investors. We screen them. We work with them. I sit with them. And frankly, my role is to call the bullshit across these things so that we can begin to actually make some progress. And that's the role that I've had to embrace. And the second is, I built some of the world's largest digital advertising systems. And it's to begin to bridge the access gap for the best practices of what it takes to market in a world that most of the decisions stem from something that happens on a phone. I've lived in my very privileged Silicon Valley bubble for a long time, and I took for granted all of the best practices and the tips and the tricks. And I'm here to help democratize that. And we set up a community, Eureka, to do that. And I'm dedicating the next part of my career to this. Wow. Thank you all for sharing your stories so far. So I have a couple of questions. So one is around, I mean, Michelle, you talked about this, about Verizon taking a public stance on public policy issues that are connected to social justice. And I think Ford has also done, and David, I think this is, knowing Melissa Bradley, I know that she also takes these public stances. But I'm wondering for, there's a perception that that is a risky move to take stances on issues of public policy. And so I'm wondering, for whoever wants to take this, what did it take for you to move your company or your leadership to take these public stances? So I'm a data driven person. Fundamentally, I'm a geek. I'm rooted in products and data, and I'd sift through numbers all day if you let me. And so if you straight up look at the numbers, if we do not do something to help the fastest growing population, the group of people who are creating companies at a rate three to six X higher than the rest of the population, if we don't help the group who we rely on to create jobs for the future, those jobs won't exist. Look, what's been going on in the world over the last several weeks and frankly, decades is no surprise to a lot of the people on this call. And it's a world that my parents handed to me and that their parents handed to them and it's been systemically building. And so if I just flat out look at the numbers, the world that we are going to hand to our children is going to continue to get worse. The divide is going to continue to get worse. And the ability for the average person to have a fighting chance at a living wage job is going down, not up. And so it doesn't. So to me, it wasn't about what is bravery or what is it? It's my responsibility as a parent to create a world that is better than the one that I was given to hand to my children. And I am extremely lucky and very blessed to be in a position both professionally and with my own family that I can do this work. So for me, it's not a choice. It's an obligation. Yeah, I would add to that as well. I mean, I think, you know, you can't say that you want to do business in a community and they're not invested that community and that means community engagement. And so that's one thing the Verizon has been intentional about across the board and putting people in positions that can engage the community. We don't know everything. So it's up to us to go to local organizations, go to the startups, the entrepreneurs, the small businesses that are on the ground and to say, Hey, we want to work with you to build long term sustainable partnerships. And when you do that and invest in the community, I mean, one is a smart business model, you build really good relationships. But beyond that, you really are building something for it for the future. I mean, I, I'm very fortunate to be working at this company because it wasn't something that we jumped on a bandwagon with, it was something that was already being done. And so we're able to really continue that messaging and helping the next generation. If you're not helping communities of color, but you want communities of color to be your customers, and you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. We have a corporate responsibility to really be involved in and to give back to communities. And that means partnering with them and giving them access and opportunity. I would agree 100%. You know, it's a smart business move. I mean, that's that's the first answer is because you have to invest. If I look, for example, Ford's minority suppliers, not just the large ones, but the requirements we have that they also have minority sub suppliers and growing those businesses and those small businesses, that's key. And my role where I oversee the grants and nonprofits throughout the US, it's also about frankly, just doing the right thing. And then that's part of who we are, you know, I share Mr. Charles at Ford, I really appreciate that's where we really been. That's why Ford fund is so invested. It is about doing the right thing. And when you talk about making statements, as I said, words matter and words are important, but it's about backing them up as much as it is about making a statement. And that's something that we have always done and will continue to do because sometimes it is just about doing the right thing and investing in people and investing in communities because as David said, if you want to do business there, and Michelle said, you have a responsibility to engage in the community. Yeah, and I'm Pamela, I'm glad you mentioned your supply chain because one of the questions I was going to ask, in particular, Michelle and Pamela, is that the purchasing power of Ford and Verizon and a lot of these large corporations is huge. And presumably, there's a lot of impact that you can have in your procurement policies, in your supplier diversity. And so you're wondering how your organizations are engaged in that work. And is that something that you're looking at as well? And it sounds like Pamela, from your perspective, yes, and Michelle? Yes, I'm very proud. And Ford is very proud of our minority supplier programming that we've been recognized for and received all kinds of awards because it's very deep. There's a very strong commitment there, as I mentioned, not just with the large minority suppliers, but with the sub suppliers to really make sure that there are opportunities there, both in terms of economic and opportunity and also how we are able to share knowledge, share capacity building to help businesses grow. And then when we incorporate that mindset into what we do at Ford Fund, Ford Fund traditionally has given very traditional grants to nonprofits. Over the past several years, we've really evolved that into social impact investing where we're helping nonprofits grow and look at a different way of getting grants, but also social entrepreneurship. We have programs for female social entrepreneurs. I don't need to tell anyone on the call about the lack of access. And David, you spoke to it in terms of capital for those entrepreneurs. Our impact program, our Empower Change program, we developed specifically to invest in those small businesses in terms of capacity and in terms of funding to help them grow. And I think we have a few of them on the call today. So shout out to my her impact and empower change women. But we've been involved in that and even on a global scale, sponsoring challenges around the world, because you have to help have to provide resources for those entrepreneurs so that they can grow to become the suppliers and the sub suppliers and the other businesses we need. Yeah, ever rising supplier diversity and inclusion is really business imperative. So in the last 10 years, we spent over $50 billion investing into diverse suppliers. And when you do that, they drive the fresh ideas, right? They drive the innovative solutions that really connects Verizon's to customers. So once again, we're able to expand our business because we're investing to economic development growth in regards to giving to smaller businesses, entrepreneurs and startups, I definitely want to highlight it and shout out three organizations that are familiar with SOCAP. We work with the Russell Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Jay Bailey runs that, Goodie Nation, Joey Womack in the Center for Civic Innovation run by Rohe. And these organizations come to us and say, hey, we're working with these entrepreneurs, these startups, these small businesses, and we help fund them and they get us there. And that's a part of being smart about what you do. We don't know all of the organizations, but there are businesses and minority businesses and entrepreneurship and innovation and tech centers that are doing the work on the ground. So why aren't we working with them so they can introduce us to the next generation? And I love that partnership and it's a smart business model for corporations to have. Thank you both. David, a question for you that's popping up within the comments here is that for a lot of folks, the businesses that they are pitching might not be traditional businesses or what a traditional VC might look at. And so what is the work that needs to be done to sort of expand what a traditional VC would look at as a potential investment? Yeah, I sort of have two answers to that. The venture capital world is like this tiny little slice of the overall finance world. And no matter what lens you look at, they've always had a relatively small slice of the patterns that they invest in. Now, the thing that was unique about my story is that all three companies specifically fit that pattern. And if I saw that, just imagine how big the iceberg under that little tip was. And so I think a lot of it starts with financial literacy and that there needs to be an understanding of what are the various forms of capital that are available because just in all of the companies that get funded, if you take even just take the buy-thousand in the total numbers of it, venture capital is this tiny slice. And so I think that it starts with what are all the different things that have become available? And one of the things that we're most excited about is what's going on in crowdfunding. And we've done a couple of partnerships in that space and one in particular with an organization called Start Engine. And we're bringing our first companies through to that program and they're bringing a different perspective of investor to the table. And so that gets into kind of my second play is one of the things that we're focused on, Eureka, is you have to demonstrate that it's profitable, that you make more money by working with these communities and by working with entrepreneurs that have been traditionally overlooked, then you do if you don't. Just straight up, if you look at the numbers, you could say you look at it and say, well, it's a negative that the valuations are not as high. Well, as an investor, that couldn't be a better thing. And so we have to start expanding the universe of who those investors are and the ways in which we go about it. And so we've had, frankly, more success doing two things, expanding the base of investors and thinking about it as not traditional venture capital. And then the second is working with this whole new area that has happened in seed and around financing as traditional venture has kind of moved more to look like private equity. And we brought those folks in and began to create safe spaces for them to meet with companies who don't look like the traditional venture capitalists and explore royalty-based deals and lots of different traditional models. In fact, as we have a program, Eureka Connect, every month, we help a series of companies find money that don't come from traditional venture spaces. So the first is financial literacy, there are grant programs, there are loan programs, there's equity-based, there's debt-based, and then there's royalty-based. And then the second is expanding the pool of who those investors are beyond what is the traditional Sandhill Road style VC. I'm using myself, sorry. So, David, thank you for that. Michelle and Pamela, did you have anything to add on that particular piece around sort of the investing in how people are viewing the businesses that they're coming in investing in? Yeah, absolutely. And much like David, we work with 1863 Ventures and Melissa Bradley on our Her Impact program, which we just we just held in Miami, the most recent one. I agree with you, David, you have to, it's very important to us to make that capital, access to that capital available, but it's about the capital, but it's also about the capacity building and the support, which is why a lot of the programs and the programs that we do are around capacity building and preparing businesses for success as much as about the capital as well that we provide. Yeah, and I would just add access to relationships and people in the room. The one thing we do in regards to our community engagement plan is we look at pain points in every area. So, Atlanta, your income inequality, right? That is number one in Atlanta. We're looking at poverty and homelessness and issues of pain points that really affect us. And then we're looking at organizations that match up with those and having community talks with these organizations and they're being introduced to Verizon, we're being introduced to them. And even if we don't wind up supporting or funding something that they're doing, they're able to connect with other innovators in the room and other entrepreneurs and tech startups. And I think that's important and it's important to have women of color and people of color in positions like this so that we can bring diversity to the room in regards to small businesses. One thing that we did during COVID-19, we gave away $7.5 million for small businesses through a national nonprofit list. And so small businesses from hair salons to barbershops to the local wing spot, we're getting $10,000 each. And they were really impacted and we were allowing them to make a difference. Once again, when you're this huge corporation, what are you doing on the ground locally? And that's what you really have to think about. David, I have a question. How do you bring more of your peers, white men with access to power, into this conversation and as allies? Yeah, that's a tough question. I think most people would be surprised at how many folks have a desire to do something. I think that there's a couple of things that we need to do. One that Eureka's specifically trying to do is just, frankly, making it easier. Making it easier for them to take a few hours out of their day to work with a company to help them. Fundamentally, what I found is that whenever there's a human-to-human connection, magic things happen. And when we can get somebody to take an hour of their day and meet with an entrepreneur that they ordinarily wouldn't even know existed, and they find out the human being behind it, how hard they've worked, frankly, that they're scrappier, that their economics are a better on a unit basis than what they're traditionally seeing in that category. Simply because they've had to. The level of dedication and hard work translates through to a human-to-human. So making more human-to-human connections and bridging gaps to would-be allies is a big first step. That's the small step for man that we can begin to take every day to play off of Neil Armstrong a little bit. But the more systemic problem isn't going to get better until we demonstrate that there's money to be made. And the economics of not investing in this community becomes scarier than investing. And so we want to create examples where it's extremely profitable and where people have made a lot of money because they work with these companies. And if the companies are growing, making money, then the investment community, the investment base makes money. But if those companies aren't growing and doing well, that can't be true. So we have to solve the macroeconomic problem. And that's not as daunting in practice as it sounds here as I'm describing it. The three or four best practices that I typically work with and that Eureka has a program that we do that we work with, we can go set in and just provide the access, get people connected, get them to the best practices, and get them fed through to the right customers. And the average company that comes through that program in about four months has almost a 50% increase in revenue. Simple basic fundamental access points, the huge differences to these companies. And the leadership and the people behind them are very capable. If you just eliminate the barrier, the ideas aren't any different, they're not any better or worse, the people frankly work harder. So there's all of these fundamental underlying strengths that are already there that by simply removing access barriers and applying best practices help growth and growth is where money is made. And the macroeconomics are what's going to change this systemically. Thank you. I think we're at time. Do any final thoughts from any of our panelists? I would just add, you know, we have to continue to have a conversation, but we also have to have an action plan. And I think that's so important in regards to moving it forward. So we have to continue, you know, to vote. I think Stacey Abrams just said it's a day in Georgia revoting. If you haven't done that, stay in line and make sure you vote. But we also have to continue to use as a corporation, use our organizational capacity to invest our dollars. You have to support economic and workforce development programs. We have to give to communities of color. And we have to continue to bring people into the room, give them access to corporations, hear their voice and invest into our next generation. Right. I agree 100%. It's about access. It's about opportunity. It is about real action. And making sure that we, as to somewhat to your last question, that we have a variety of people in the room. I know as we've engaged more in social entrepreneurship and pitch competitions, it's really important that we get a group of judges, for example, in the room that can see different things and see different perspectives. It's about action. And it's about all of us participating and fully engaging with money, with words and with action on this one. Great. And so thank you all for your time here. You know, and I would just add, I think, you know, there's the human to human connection, David, that you talked about. We all talked about or everyone talked about access. Michelle, thank you for bringing up the civic engagement part that needs to happen in the voting. You know, I think there's another piece of this, which is gets to the structural, which is rewriting the rules of how the economy works, which is a much bigger policy conversation than we have time for here. But I think that's just another layer that that we can't forget about, right? Governance, antitrust. I mean, all of the rules that govern our economy. So again, thank you all for your time. And I think I'm handing it back over to someone on Spectrum. Thank you so much for that wonderful panel. I want to thank you to our panelists for the powerful conversation. A poll has just been launched. We would love you to engage in that as we prepare ourselves to go into our breakout sessions. So we have, we're inviting you to join one of three breakout sessions. The breakout sessions are really intended to curate a set of concrete actionable steps that can be taken up by leaders and communities towards a more equitable entrepreneurial landscape for communities of color. Each session will be moderated by a field leader and your conversation will be guided by a facilitator who will track your actionable steps. At the end of the day, we'll come back and share key insights from the breakouts. Again, there are three different breakout sessions. One is focused on capital allocators. And this is geared towards organizations and individuals that are that are capital allocators. Join this conversation to focus on concrete steps for how to move capital more capital to founders and communities of color and what needs to change be built or created. This session will be facilitated by Marco Gonzalez with Vamos Ventures. The second interactive breakout is focused on enterprises and will be moderated by Pedro Sostre, the founder of WebLift. And it's geared towards companies and entrepreneurs to focus on concrete steps of how best to support founders and leaders of color and what needs to change be built or created. And then last, we have a session for innovators. Innovators are a critical piece of the ecosystem that connect and support different sectors. And so this session will be focused on access and will be moderated by Brian Goble from the Emory University Goisette Business Center. We will rejoin or reconvene at about 2.15. And so we just thank you and enjoy your breakout sessions.