Be Fearless

I’ve been processing the Fearless Fund ruling for a few days now. It’s still hard to put into words what I feel and think because there’s so much to say, and at the same time, we’ve been here before so what else is there to say?

Well, I’m not built that way. My calling for people to experience hope and revelation compels me to lend my voice to and uplift Black Women founders, shining a light on their experiences, so we might continue on, towards liberty and justice for all….

So let’s start with the basics:

In this country, Black people in particular experience significant economic disadvantages. Shocking, I know. Yet some continue to deny this very basic truth.

We know these disadvantages go all the way back to slavery, but for those who can’t handle that truth, they also go back to Reconstruction.

And Jim Crow.

And the Civil Rights era.

And present-day racial discrimination in housing, justice, employment, education and healthcare.

Yet and still, throughout this experience, Black Americans are told by those who wield economic power and enjoy wealth-based privilege – often White and often Male, and VERY often desperate to retain both of those things – that the past is the past.

That what happened 400 years ago, 300 years ago, 200 years ago, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, 25 years ago… Does. Not. Matter.

Black Wall Street gone. Does. Not. Matter.

Incarceration rate 3.4 times that of White Americans, resulting in lost labor and economic productivity opportunity within the Black community. Does. Not. Matter.

Black household median income 32% lower than that of White households. Does. Not. Matter.

White households have 10X more wealth on average than Black households. Does. Not. Matter.

“Pull yourselves up by your own damn bootstraps. Stop complaining about what you don’t have. Focus on what you do have. Take care of your community like we take care of ours, and you’ll be ok. You’ll thrive just like we do. All it takes is a little elbow grease.”

“You can do it you just try hard enough.”

“You can do it if you just work smarter.”

“You can do it if you invest your own resources in your community.”

I see, I see. (I also know. That some of this is ignorance. And some of this is hatred. And there are still many among us who refuse to discern the difference.)

So Black and Brown and women entrepreneurs around this country – actually around the world – are doing what has been learned throughout centuries of oppression: to be enterprising with a social purpose. To indeed uplift our/their own communities – not in spite of or at the exclusion of other communities, but to the betterment of all. It is about generosity and resource-sharing, to enable and empower more people to thrive.

So now we turn our attention to the Fearless Fund.

We’ve all heard the stats by now when it comes to women founders, but in case you’ve been ignoring them, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program puts it this way:

“Data and research prove that there is a significant gender gap in venture capital funding. Even though women are underrepresented as entrepreneurs to begin with, they receive a disproportionately small share of VC funding: 2.3% for all-female founding teams and 10.4% for mixed-gender founding teams. These numbers have stagnated in the last three decades, as the 30-year average of all-female founders’ share of VC funding is 2.4%. Generally, female founders receive approximately a quarter of the amount of funding they seek, while their male counterparts receive half, on average. Women are also underrepresented as participants in VC deals with only 5.9% of U.S. deals involving all-female founding teams or solo female founders and 15.2% involving mixed-gender founding teams. Despite all of these disadvantages, female-founded ventures perform as well as male-founded ones, controlling for relevant variables like sector, market, experience, and hours worked. The gender gap in venture funding can be explained by factors related to entrepreneurs as well as investors.”

Read that last part again: “The gender gap in venture funding can be explained by factors related to entrepreneurs as well as investors.”

Let’s dig a little deeper and look at gender AND race – on both sides of the funding table.

According to this article in Forbes, “White men represent 30% of the population, 58% of all VC investors and manage a staggering 93% of VC dollars.”

And on the flip side, “While 77% of VC dollars go to companies with white founders, less than 10% of VC dollars go to women founders and less than 1% go to Black founders.” 

I’m no mathematician, but it seems to me that venture capital power and money are concentrated among White men, and funding for Black women founders is severely underindexed, when you compare this group to the demographics of the population in general or entrepreneurs specifically.

This is not said to vilify White people, men, or White men.

This is said because we cannot get to the bottom of this if we can’t be honest about the role race and gender play in this situation in general, in the Fearless Fund case.

Think about what Fearless Fund is trying to solve for:

“Fearless Fund invests in women of color led businesses seeking pre-seed, seed level or series A financing. Our mission is to bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders building scalable, growth aggressive companies. Fearless Fund is built by women of color for women of color.”

They're trying to address the math problem. The underrepresentation in the system. And artfully so.

To me, the fund represents a collective expression that says to those who would deny the historical and present-day reality of inequality for Black people and women: “Fine. Don’t want to go back in time and fix what is showing up in real time? Okay, cool. Then let’s fix what is happening in real time so that we can change our future.”

And that is still not good enough. In fact, that is not good at all for some people, because it scares them.

Because if you’ve met a Black woman, you already know they would give you the coat off their back, the food off their table, and give you a ride to work on top of all that. That is real power. To give. To teach. To uplift.

And that kind of power, although it has real economic implications, is rooted in something other than money. And that scares the crap out of some of the people whose power is derived from the vastness of their wealth.

Change. Our. Future.

Ah, that may have been the "flaw" in the ointment.

Because those who seek to hoard power and privilege like monopoly money, trying to send the rest of us strait to economic jail – as in, DO NOT PASS GO – those folks are afraid of the future.

They are afraid of the reality that the future is already here, and it is more multicultural, more diverse, more intersectional than the world they grew up in, succeeded in. And if you are not used to that, I’m sure it feels like a threat to your existence. (Even though it is not a threat to your existence.)

Clearly, the argument calling Fearless Fund a discriminatory business falls apart the instant you look at the decades-long track record of venture capital in this country, which is an extensive history of rich people who are largely White and mostly men investing in other people who very often White and very often men – so they, too, can be rich.

The Fearless Fund has nothing to do with discrimination against non-Black women entrepreneurs.

The Fearless Fund has everything to do with providing a solution for the continued exclusion of Black women entrepreneurs specifically, and women and People of Color entrepreneurs more generally.

The most insidious part of this ruling is what lies behind it: a coordinated effort to thwart or dismantle any and all attempts to correct the centuries-long intentionally structured injustice, unfairness and lack of access to opportunity.

Black women investing in Black women really has some people shook! The fragility of it all! I thought level playing fields and community self-sufficiency and self-determination were virtues to uphold!

Until this country deals honestly and equitably with the past, and with Black America in particular, this will not change. Efforts to inspire and hold systems accountable will continue to meet stiff resistance. Efforts to drive change within communities will be suppressed. And efforts to achieve long-term equality for other under-resourced and excluded communities and groups will also struggle.

And so what will it take? How can there ever be a just, equitable economic system?

I believe this kind of change requires broad-based inclusion of people with a lot of different perspectives – with a focus on understanding and prioritizing the lived experiences of those who’ve been excluded from economic opportunity. In this case, that means people who’ve been excluded from and underrepresented in 1) entrepreneurial support systems and programs; 2) capital access, broadly; and 3) participation in the VC-backed startup ecosystem, specifically. You know, the kind of entrepreneurs and founders that Fearless Fund supports, just like countless other programs designed to remove barriers.

And, I believe it takes those who hold power and privilege in this space to play an informed, accountable, and inspired leadership role to help create change within the systems and structures they control. That means that White people and men, and White men in particular, have an incredible opportunity to be part of this change in a positive way, whether they’re working specifically in venture capital and entrepreneurial funding, or in other parts of the economic system and the systems that intersect with it: employment, education, housing, credit, healthcare, etc.

If you truly believe in fairness, if you truly believe in people working hard for opportunity and then being able to actually access it, if you understand the power of human networks, if you want more people to thrive and not less, then it’s time to act courageously. To be Fearless.

As allies, advocates and champions, as people with power and privilege (and I include myself as a man in that group), there are three things that I believe need to happen:

1. We must advocate for Women founders on par with the way we advocate for all founders: with our energy, attention, time, words, relationships.
2. We must advocate for Black and Brown founders on par with the way we advocate for all founders: with our energy, attention, time, words and relationships.
3. We must invest in founders and entrepreneurs who are Women of Color, at levels that are accurately representative of their makeup of founders and entrepreneurs in general.

None of this needs to be at the exclusion of White male founders and entrepreneurs. Inclusion is additive, this is a growth market, and there is plenty of room at this table.

Here’s how you can do it:

• Recommend them for opportunities, for jobs, and to investors.
• Mentor and sponsor them – early and often.
• Champion them and emphasize their qualifications, lived experiences, and unique perspectives when discussing them, their business and the value they deliver.
• Involve them in decisions that might affect them and in decisions they might help you improve.
• Speak their names when they are not in the rooms where decisions get made.
• Amplify their voices on social media and reference them in one-on-ones within your circles of influence.
• Normalize the inclusion of women and People of Color entrepreneurs in your list of examples of “who’s doing this really cool thing…” If you don’t know any, research them. Reach out to Black Women Talk Tech, or Fearless Fund, or other programs who know founders in these communities who are working on groundbreaking ideas and products.
• Fight for women and People of Color entrepreneurs to have equal and just access to the resources and opportunities you have control or influence over. Keep it simple: look for places where demographic and socio-economic underrepresentation exists throughout the entrepreneurial, VC and capital ecosystems. And then come up with a plan to drive change, even a long-term one, that is sustainable and measurable.
• And finally, finally, finally: make the actual investments and encourage others to do the same.

Right the wrong.

Stop economic inequality.

Support economic freedom.

That’s how we improve delivery on the promise of opportunity in this country, while accelerating innovation and growth.

Love you. Mean it. 🙏🏽❤️