The $228 billion industry fueled by the exploitation of brown&black faces
In Silicon Valley, black founders only receive 1% of funding, yet brown&black faces are underpinning another funding ecosystem.
What if I told you that brown&black faces are the foundation of a growing $228B market? A market where brown&black faces are represented in abundance. A market that is 82% larger than the global organic food and beverages market, but also 92% larger than the global electric vehicle market.
Above are just some of the aforementioned brown&black faces, often described as customers, stakeholders, value-chain employees, micro-entrepreneurs, community health workers and/or empowered community leaders. Regardless of the titles assigned to them, they are a staple in the impact investing ecosystem.
Impact investing is a diverse sector, with a spectrum ranging from outright grantmaking to venture capital-like seed investments chasing the next unicorn. For those less familiar with the space, see here or here for a good overview. Impact investing rests on the belief that there exists a space where one can ‘do good and make money.’ For many, impact investing is the new holy grail of international development.
Racism has been well documented in international development, from the white-savior complex, to the more subtle use of words like “traditional” to describe practices that don’t align with western views. In 2017, the size of the international development sector was $147B; GIIN estimates that the impact investors manage assets that are already 50% larger. International development has long been described as a sector dominated by posh white blokes. In 2017, Village Capital released a study highlighting that 90% of East Africa impact investing funds went towards white expat founders (I’m currently working on publishing work on this topic as well).
Historically, the international development sector portrayed its beneficiaries as hopeless and defined only by hunger, famine and starvation. This view was reflected in photos such as:
But impact investing has taken a new approach, using brown&black faces in images designed to be uplifting. Images of women empowered to start a new last-mile micro-enterprise, or of a family whose world has been brightened by a solar panel, or perhaps a child benefiting from a new mobile education platform.
Brown&black faces are being used as commodities, to be exploited, fueling social enterprises and NGOs, predominantly run by western faces. The exploitation of brown&black faces remain common place globally, from Italian farmers exploiting migrant Africans, or American college athletics exploiting black athletes.
The international development sector has long relied on poverty porn, amplifying postcolonial narratives through photos. If social entrepreneurs are indeed building scalable businesses, then I would encourage these entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas based on the merits of your product, your profit margins, your competitive advantage….without using brown&black faces as a sympathy crutch.
As Anand Giridharadas wrote in his new book, Winners Take All:The Elite Charade of Changing the World, I too feel “like a casual participant in — and timid accomplice to, as well as a cowardly beneficiary” of the ecosystem in which I work. This critique is the first in a series highlighting, the good, the bad and the ugly of impact investing.
