Black Women Entrepreneurship: Community Support Moves Us Forward Because It Brings Us Together

We’ve been talking about how black women, despite the structural racism and gender inequality, are thriving because of their talent, not their skin color. We brought to the light the fact that, even though 50% of women-owned businesses in the U.S. are controlled by minority women, they are still struggling to have access to capital, financial partnerships, mentoring and so on. Now, in this last post of our series, we want to talk about community.

Community is a powerful word for black people in general. When fighting against prejudice, claiming for our lives, promoting our businesses, support is all we need, given that it comes along with care, reliability, trust. Community support brings to black female entrepreneurs the strength they need to rise up. Access to social networks is as important as access to financial capital for underrepresented groups. But guess what? We don’t have to do it alone at all.

Just BE believes that connecting Black women to business programs, funding opportunities and clients can make them level up together. That’s why 8 Black entrepreneurs, who were burning themselves out with limited resources, came together in 2016 to be a network that supports their peers in sharing knowledge, honoring each other’s struggles, developing and running successful businesses. They decided to hold hands to not keep hustling in isolation.

Walking alone is also a no-go for The Runway Project, a national initiative created to provide early-stage funding and holistic business support to Black female founders. They invite women to bridge the racial wealth gap through the infrastructure barriers that try to hold us back. Going down the same path, Black Career Women’s Network offers professional growth opportunities for African American women in business with training, mentoring, coaching, resources to help them strive for career success, empowering them to work in their highest potential.

Minority women entrepreneurs community needs to meet the investor and mentoring communities to build constructive ways side by side. When a business owner has a strong support system (understand by support emotional, educational and financial help here), it is easier to survive, at least, the first five years of the business inside the predominantly male-oriented business ecosystem. 

Dealing with discrimination in all life aspects, Black women found in their innovative ideas, a way out of the marginalization, which led them to be the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States (between 2018 and 2019, they started over 1.600 new brands per day around the country, according to the State of Women-Owned Business Report). And when they find other women on the same page, they can address the challenges they face, at the same time that they are able to open new doors while seeing themselves building up community strength. Relationships take their business interactions to a next level because they need to feel safe. More than that, they need to feel they can do whatever they want because the inspiration is right there, in this valuable social capital of real life.

Some American cities in Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania are already growing Black entrepreneurial hubs, motivated by Black Girl Venture - BGV, to create safe local spaces for Black women to unify and consolidate their ideas, sharing not just what they have achieved so far, but what they’re dreaming about too. It fosters an essential collaboration between businesses, universities and local government. BGV also started an incubator to take Black and Brown founders to wherever they want to be, accelerating 100.000 business journeys through social capital that unlocks financial capital to celebrate victories all together. Besides that, BGV has a bunch of amazing programs to help Black entrepreneurs to fly higher. You can check it out here and join their Facebook group that makes the community-building visible and stronger.

Building community is our power to come to a wide-ranging change. Finding a group where you feel part of is what fuels us to fight for inclusion. Scenarios are shifting, paradigms are being broken, diversity is speaking up more than ever. But we still have a long way ahead to get to where we want to go, even though we have that steady confidence to drive us forward. It’s time for us, Black women entrepreneurs, to not just feel that we belong. It’s time to, during and after the endeavor, to be the revolution. 

Click here to find more funding and resources as incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces and communities for Black female founders.