Be Fearless Spotlight: Fixing a Leaky Pipeline

Posted on October 28, 2015October 30, 2018 by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

Last year, a number of well-known tech-focused companies released information about their employees that relates specifically to race and gender. The results shone a light on the deeply rooted challenges this sector faces when it comes to diversity. Breaking through those obstacles remains a challenge for women and minorities in particular—one that the Kapor Center for Social Impact (Kapor Center), based in Oakland, California, is boldly tackling every day.

The Kapor Center wears its mission on its sleeve: “We believe that when the community of tech leaders reflects the diversity of the United States, tech will play an integral role in closing gaps and disparities that exist in this country,” the organization’s website states. “Via proven methods from the for-profit and nonprofit fields, we work in partnership with a diverse set of stakeholders to maximize social impact.” Over the years, the Kapor Center has focused its efforts on audacious, “gap-closing” endeavors. The “gap” in these cases refers to a number of challenges facing society today—gaps in academic achievement, access to health care and economic opportunity, as well as gaps in income, information and social mobility.

To achieve these lofty goals, the Kapor Center funds a variety of groundbreaking initiatives and entrepreneurs aimed at stopping what it calls the Leaky Tech Pipeline, which creates roadblocks for African Americans and other underrepresented communities of color in the tech-innovation fields. Currently, African Americans account for less than 3 percent of programmers, developers, engineers and other tech-focused talent. As a result, although African Americans are generally early adopters and users of technology, their intellectual capital is almost nonexistent in the development of new apps and tech systems, leaving in question how germane the products are to their daily lives. To address this gap, the Kapor Center has initiated several interventions, including efforts to provide greater access to educational opportunities for African American and Latino students.

One such intervention has emerged from a program called the College Bound Brotherhood, which supports college and 21st-century career readiness for Bay Area African American males. Created in 2008, the Brotherhood is the first network in the United States to focus on African American male students and connect them to college readiness programs and local resources. Using a Networked Improvement Community model—in which organizations, parents and school districts learn from, support and build with one another to become more solution-oriented toward issues specific to their community—the Brotherhood aims to place 3,000 African American males on a college-bound and college-completion track annually.

Justin Davis, a former professional basketball player who serves as a Program Officer for the Kapor Center, joined the organization in order to “pay it forward” after benefiting from the opportunities that similar funded programs offered him as a young male of color, including college prep services. Davis attended Stanford University on an athletic scholarship, studying communications, then played with the Golden State Warriors.

“In 2008, foundations weren’t investing heavily in black males’ achievement or black-male-centric initiatives,” Davis notes. “We would like to think we were seeing ahead of the curve of what was a pressing issue needing philanthropic support.” Davis says that as a result of the Kapor Center’s early investments in black males, it has been on the front lines of a larger movement, providing not only financial resources, but also “our tech inclusion lens” to such initiatives as President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper, the Executive Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color, and the California Executives’ Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color.

Davis embraces a bold approach when advancing the work of the Kapor Center. Fearlessness to him means “being unapologetic about serving underserved communities, especially black and Latino, especially with regard to technology.” Noting that the tech industry is “highly homogeneous and not truly reflective of America in general,” Davis says that “our priority and focus is on creating a more diverse tech sector, so we made several investments in community-based organizations and nonprofits serving these groups. Being fearless means we’re very vocal and outspoken about this being an issue. These doors are not welcoming for people of color! And even for the few people who get in, is there a culture that retains them?”

Davis is an athlete at heart, and his competitive nature drives his work. “How do you get better at philanthropy? How do you get better at serving communities of color?” These are key questions that he challenges himself and his team to consider. “I’m always thinking about ways to improve our work and our organization.”

Davis asks, “How can we make the best investments that snowball and create a tech sector that welcomes these men? Our challenge has been trying to understand where to make those investments, as there are no blueprints for how to do this through grant-making. We’ve been making investments outside our comfort zone.”

Reflecting the skill set he developed while working with the Kapor Center, Davis has gone on to rebrand the College Bound Brotherhood, helping it to focus solely on diversifying the world of tech. That meant cutting off funding to some grantees while gambling on new and untested investments. “As part of our pivot to focus exclusively on tech, we parted with some of our long-term grant partners,” Davis says. “In doing so, an opportunity presented itself to support a number of nonprofits who weren’t receiving much interest or funding for their work aimed at exposing communities of color to coding.”

Without such focused support, Davis adds, the effects of a growing tech sector on black and Latino communities were mainly “displacement, career unreadiness and gentrification.” The Brotherhood’s investment strategy paid off: “Two to three years later, we had people so thankful for [our] taking the risk to help them grow and develop.”

While the Kapor Center is strengthening the tech pipeline for people of color, Davis is quick to point out that “there are many entry points—from a novice coder to successful entrepreneur.” He notes that not all students in the College Bound Brotherhood have been introduced to coding, but like many Americans they’re “connected at the hip to technology via cell phones or gaming consoles. We simply want to expose these young men to exactly where that technology comes from and inform them that there is a lucrative career available to them if they’re interested. We aim to build meaningful relationships with tech companies so they remain cognizant of the importance of having multiple doors through which talent of color can comfortably walk.”

The Brotherhood collaborates with more than 40 agencies and organizations, each of which contributes to the network model. Much of the success of the program is due to the engagement of unlikely partners. “They’re the big tech firms just down the road. We’re knocking on the door and getting into those closed walls,” Davis explains.

The “tech inclusion” full court press is working, he says with satisfaction. “Oh yes! We’re sitting down now with C-suite staff and doing workshops on this issue in front of hundreds and hundreds of their staff,” Davis says. “These conversations have paid dividends in the sense that we are no longer knocking on the doors (as much), but are now often answering the knock on our door.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

Economic Mobility: What Can We Do?

Posted on October 15, 2015October 31, 2018 by Case Foundation

Economic mobility is defined as the ability of an individual, family or some other group to improve (or lower) their economic status. This term has been featured more and more frequently in recent reports about education, employment, criminal justice and political institutions, and for good reason. According to recent research like the Pew Charitable Trust’s Economic Mobility Project, “the ability to move up the economic ladder from one generation to the next is more limited in the United States than many think.” In his recent novel, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, Robert Putnam explains the correlation between the growing opportunity gap, another highly discussed topic, and stagnant economic mobility and the devastating effects it has had in declining American neighborhoods since the 1970s.

Last month, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) and the Case Foundation brought together multi-sector representatives to lead a conversation on this very topic. Given current reporting and statistics, the problem of economic mobility can seem insurmountable, but we wanted to focus on action-oriented opportunities. Our goal was to identify how organizations can start chipping away at some of the large and small elements of this growing problem of increasing inequality in social and economic opportunity.

So what did we learn?

Sarah Koch, senior director of Social Innovation at the Case Foundation; guest speaker Christopher Upperman, senior advisor at the U.S. Small Business Administration; and the EPIP members had a lively discussion about one particular opportunity gaining traction in communities across the country—the development of pathways to entrepreneurship. Three major themes surfaced over the course of the discussion on small business ownership and entrepreneurship, including: multi-sector, multi-lingual partnerships; examples of success that represent diverse demographics; and easier access to resources like startup capital.

Multi-Sector, Multi-Lingual Trust Building

Both Koch and Upperman stressed the importance of community-centric collaboration to implement strong entrepreneurial ecosystems. Together, the group addressed the reality that cross-sector partnerships are not easy to develop; however, for government and philanthropic efforts to be effective, local organizations are vital. Community organizations speak the language of the city and of the neighborhoods, and they bring credibility and community trust to programs. Koch specifically cited the dangers of only working from a perspective of privilege, which came up when evaluating some of the risks associated with small business ownership—loan default and loss of savings, both of which have very different implications depending on your socio-economic status. This point in the conversation reaffirmed the importance of including the voices of local organizations in philanthropic efforts.

Filling the Resource Gap

At age 18, Upperman started his own business, a communications company in Atlanta, GA. He achieved short-term success, but admits that his team lacked the management skills to sustain a business. This experience fuels his work at SBA with Millennials and young people of color because he understands what new entrepreneurs need to get from idea to launch to sustainability. For example, many new entrepreneurs’ initial funding comes from small business loans and friends and family. Meaning, if you don’t qualify for credit and have a low-income network, you can’t access this traditional startup capital—putting you behind before you even begin. So he is driven to connect these entrepreneurs to stronger capital and infrastructure resources.

Upperman mentioned some of SBA’s efforts aimed at filling these gaps, including work with local organizations and institutions like banks, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), universities, chambers of commerce and other nonprofits to help entrepreneurs access small business loans and financial and credit literacy training. These resources prepare new entrepreneurs to manage their businesses responsibly for greater longevity, providing the kinds of opportunities that Upperman, himself, lacked as a young entrepreneur.

The Need for Inspiration

Beyond capital and infrastructure, underrepresented groups often lack positive influence from relatable stories of inspiration. Upperman pointed out that right now most young people of color from poor backgrounds couldn’t identify a prominent success story involving a person that looks like them. These stories are hugely important in creating visions for their own success as entrepreneurs, or in any other field. Compared with the frequency and regularity that affluent young people engage with relatable “hero” images or success stories, lower-income youth of color are largely at a disadvantage. This gap presents an opportunity for both more investments and more reporting on entrepreneurs from a wider range of backgrounds.

It was exciting to see, over the course of the discussion, the number of new philanthropists who are prioritizing economic mobility issues in their approach to work. We were happy to engage in a discussion of how to take action on this very persistent social problem. Many of the themes that surfaced during the conversation are highly relevant beyond a mission of increasing access to entrepreneurship. For any philanthropic, government, nonprofit or cross-sector program focused on economic empowerment in an underserved community there is value in speaking the community’s language, improving the representation of demographically relevant examples of success and increasing access to capital and other supportive resources.

We at the Foundation are inspired by the agility and creativity of entrepreneurs and are dedicated to creating greater inclusivity in the dream of business ownership. For more information on our efforts to level the playing field for all entrepreneurs check out our page on Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

If you are interested in learning more about economic mobility and the opportunity gap, here is a short list of resources:

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis – Robert Putnam
The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide – Institute on Assets and Social Policy
Equality of Opportunity Project – Harvard University
A Place at the Table – Magnolia Home Entertainment

Celebrating Inclusive Entrepreneurship at White House Demo Day

Posted on August 4, 2015October 31, 2018 by Case Foundation

American innovation has long been the envy of the world. Throughout our country’s history, thanks to our free enterprise system, people from all walks of life have brought forth innovations that benefited society broadly—in all sectors such as energy, transportation, health care and more. These innovations often came about from those who “lived the problem” and dreamed great solutions that could benefit the masses. These were entrepreneurs who built young enterprises to bring their products and services to market and who often changed the world in the process.

Today, we need to ensure that American innovation isn’t simply about providing more convenience for the privileged—such as easier hotel bookings, more and comfortable ways to get from point A to point B or same-day delivery of groceries from an upscale market. To build solutions for the future, we need to move beyond the “app culture” and engage a new class of entrepreneurs—many who have lived real problems and are building real solutions to the challenges in our communities, and around the globe. But in recent years, this segment of entrepreneurs has often been left on the sidelines of innovations, with no steady flow of capital, mentorship or celebration focused on them.

It is well known that the vast majority of today’s celebrated startups continue to be founded by white, well-educated, well-networked males. And while we celebrate all startups and new innovations—we are underleveraged as a nation if those in more marginalized communities are left on the sidelines. There is, for instance, immense potential for women, people of color and those who don’t live on the coasts or graduate from our nation’s most elite schools. Women are leading 36 percent of all businesses in the U.S., but only receive 10 percent of venture capital funding. Minority-owned businesses are growing at a faster clip than non-minority owned businesses, but are receiving an even smaller fraction of investments. Seventy five percent of venture capital today goes to three states—California, New York and Massachusetts. There is a growing realization that this has to change, including at the highest levels in our nation and among those who are driving this change.

For example, today in New Orleans, PowerMoves, a minority-focused incubator, is backing young enterprises that reach across socio-economic barriers to bring opportunities to those often the last to benefit from innovation. In the first year of operation, PowerMoves worked with 87 companies to create 350 jobs in New Orleans and Detroit. Because of PowerMoves’ work, these companies were able to secure $14M in additional capital commitments to high growth, high tech startups led by entrepreneurs of color. Crystal McDonald, a PowerMoves entrepreneur, developed GoToInterview, a service to connect hourly workers with companies that have demand for them, and won the Rise of the Rest pitch competition in New Orleans.

And there are many more examples of entrepreneurs from underrepresented populations that are seeking solutions to problems that benefit all, like Pashon Murray, a dynamic entrepreneur of color in Detroit. Inspired at an early age by her father’s waste hauling company, Pashon turned family knowledge into a scalable business that takes food waste from companies, including General Motors and the Detroit Zoo, and transforms it into rich soil for local farmers to enhance crop productivity and create jobs. For Pashon, it’s not just about the hauling of waste—she is also a fellow at the MIT Media Lab studying the science of composting and waste reduction. She is combining science, engineering, the needs of a community and her entrepreneurial spirit to create a viable, scalable business in Detroit.

The opportunity to tap into the potential of these entrepreneurs is top of mind for us at the Case Foundation, and why we are delighted that today, the White House will host its first ever Demo Day, with a focus on inclusive entrepreneurship—bringing together entrepreneurs from all walks of life and from all across the country. We look forward to joining President Obama today in a commitment to see “more startup hotbeds emerge in every corner of America, and that those underrepresented in entrepreneurship are being tapped to fully contribute their entrepreneurial talents.”

In fact, here at the Case Foundation, we’ve long believed in the potential for unleashing entrepreneurs—and entrepreneurial approaches—as a clear path for making the world a better place. Over the past 18 years, we’ve developed and supported a range of initiatives—many of them in partnership with the White House, with Presidents of both parties—that put entrepreneurs in the middle of solving big problems, from the West Bank to Detroit, from DC to Nairobi. These initiatives include the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, an effort to bring entrepreneurship opportunities to the West Bank that I was asked to co-chair in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Startup America Partnership, focused on celebrating and accelerating entrepreneurs here in the U.S., which we launched in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation and the Obama administration in 2011. More recently, our focus has shifted to an effort to unleash new capital for entrepreneurs building businesses that seek to address significant social challenges, through our work to catalyze the burgeoning impact investing movement.

Our efforts to support entrepreneurs and the role they play in driving innovation and job growth in the U.S. and around the world have certainly been rewarding. But in the past year, we began to ask ourselves, what role can entrepreneurship play in bringing new opportunities to those left on the sideline? How can we level the playing field for underrepresented communities—including women and people of color—to become entrepreneurs and grow thriving businesses? And how can we facilitate the creation of more businesses that address the challenges that marginalized populations are facing? To help us answer these questions, we began an exploration at the beginning of the year into potential opportunities for inclusive entrepreneurship, and funded two organizations doing important work in this space—Forward Cities and Opportunity Nation. We also joined the most recent Rise of the Rest tour, supplementing the visits to Richmond, Raleigh-Durham, Charleston, Atlanta and New Orleans with conversations focused on how to expand entrepreneurship as an opportunity for all. And we just returned last week from exploring these topics on a global scale during a trip to Africa, focused on exploring burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystems in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.

We are committed to expanding our support for inclusive entrepreneurship, and in the coming months you will hear more from us on our efforts to build upon the momentum from national conversations around diversity, reduce common barriers to entrepreneurship faced by diverse entrepreneurs and scale local pilots into national programs serving women and entrepreneurs of color.

We have a tremendous opportunity today to tap into the uniquely American legacy of leveraging entrepreneurs to grow our economy, strengthen communities and solve intractable problems. But we’ll never recognize our full potential if we don’t focus on ensuring that we give all people—no matter their gender, ethnicity or economic background—the opportunity to be a part of growing entrepreneurial ecosystems, and tap their unique experiences to solve significant challenges. Imagine what is possible when we have a full team and all fields in play!

Powering Entrepreneurship with Inclusion

Posted on June 15, 2015October 31, 2018 by Case Foundation

At the Case Foundation, we believe that entrepreneurship is powerful driver of innovation, economic growth, job creation, and solutions to big, intractable problems at a global and local scale. But as we look at the increasing inequality – economic and digital divides – we have begun to explore how to tap into the fuller entrepreneurial potential of communities and countries – all backgrounds and all locations. We’ve also begun to explore the notion of catalyzing a movement in inclusive entrepreneurship built upon the theory of change that diversity breeds innovation and innovation breeds business (financial and social) success. There are a lot of ways to define “inclusive” entrepreneurship. To us, it means getting beyond those who traditionally have easier access to entrepreneurship and thinking about how to lift up—women- and minority-owned businesses, businesses that are funding good jobs for the community, and social enterprises that are committed to financial and social returns.

As part of our exploration phase, the Case Foundation team, led by our CEO Jean Case, returned to New Orleans to dive deeper into the entrepreneurship ecosystem there. Through our work with the collective impact organization, Forward Cities, we have been fortunate enough to meet entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders in New Orleans, Durham, Detroit and Cleveland who are committed to utilizing entrepreneurship to build their economies. Our team has spent the past six months listening and learning about the concept of Inclusive Entrepreneurship and we have emerged from this period of exploration even more convinced of the power of inclusion.

Our time in New Orleans was spent learning about the rebuilding of the city as we approach the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and meeting with on-the-ground ecosystem builders who are using the power of inclusivity to create thriving entrepreneurship communities.

We want to extend a warm thank you to our partners on the ground in New Orleans who shared their approaches to inclusive entrepreneurship and walked us through their city and their work while we were there. Accelerators like PowerMoves and Propeller, along with ecosystem builders like Greater New Orleans, Inc., and advocates like former New Orleans Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer have seen the value in democratizing entrepreneurship and are actively creating a more inclusive New Orleans. Photo May 08, 11 09 39 AM

And we ended our visit with a full house at NoBic, as part of the Rise of the Rest road trip, featuring the importance of diversity and inclusion in rebuilding and growing New Orleans through entrepreneurship. Jean Case led a dynamic conversation with star innovator Beth Galante and ecosystem builders Earl Robinson and Tim Williamson. It is leaders like these who are breaking down barriers and bringing the power of inclusivity to the forefront of the New Orleans entrepreneurship landscape.

And how wonderful to see the power of inclusive entrepreneurship pay off, with PowerMoves-backed entrepreneur Crystal McDonald and her company GoToInterview, win the Rise of the Rest pitch competition and a $100,000 investment.

The conversation on diversity and inclusion continues to grow. It is clear that if we want to build up our cities and grow our economies, we need to follow in New Orleans’ footsteps and level the playing field to bring more people to the table and maximize the full potential of local, national and global talent to building the companies that are going to change the world.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Build Your BE FEARLESS Style On ReadBeFearless.com