Insights on the Work of Black and Brown Social Entrepreneurs and the Challenges They Face

By: Brady Press

This webinar is a candid and insightful discussion on the work being done by Black and Brown social entrepreneurs in Atlanta and the challenges and inequities they face. It features Rohit Malhotra, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Civic Innovation (CCI), and Malika Whitley, Founder and CEO, ChopArt.

We recommend all funders and philanthropic professionals listen to the full recording, but the following notes summarize the key takeaways.

Webinar Recording

https://changingourworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/ATL-FF-S4.mp4

This post covers the fourth session from Changing Our World’s Atlanta Forging Forward Conference Series focused on idea sharing, innovative solutions and a path forward within the Atlanta community.

Speakers

Rohit Malhotra, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Civic Innovation (CCI)

• CCI is a community-driven research and development lab for local governments, nonprofits, and social entrepreneurs. CCI’s mission is to push Atlanta to be a smart, equitable, and engaged city by investing in community-driven ideas, supporting social enterprises, and engaging people in dialogue and action
• Rohit describes CCI as “a bunch of troublemakers trying to solve inequality in our own city.” The way CCI is doing this is three-fold:
• Firstly, CCI wants people to know inequality exists and to give them the tools and inspiration to do something about it. CCI hosts programs, conversations and events that challenge the way that we talk about inequality, and it brings everyone to the table: developers, elected officials, residents, etc.
• The second piece is the Fellowship program which focuses on investing and amplifying the work that is already happening
• Lastly, CCI conducts research and advocacy that finds data on systemic issues that perpetuate inequality

Malika Whitley, Founder and CEO, ChopArt

• ChopArt is a nonprofit arts organization working to provide dignity, community and opportunity to middle and high school aged youth experiencing homelessness in Atlanta through multidisciplinary arts immersion and mentorship
• Malika was inspired to start ChopArt from her own experience with homelessness and art therapy. Using art as an entry point for harm reduction and trauma intervention allows a level playing field for teens who often don’t receive resources and are often cycled into the adult homeless population

Key Takeaways

• According to Rohit, a social entrepreneur is someone who starts a business created to go out of business because it actually solved something. A social enterprise should be something that uses the market to solve the market-created challenges of the world. Someone like Malika is a living definition of what this can look like
• Malika started out as a resident at CCI in 2018 and is now a CCI mentor. As she explains, CCI does not try to force you into a box you don’t belong in; they respect your work and your process. The Fellowship not only provided much-needed funding, but also an incredible network of people to support Malika’s work. As a Mentoring Fellow, Malika is able to help entrepreneurs incorporate the CCI curriculum into their businesses in real time
• Black and Brown social entrepreneurs often start their work out of necessity, and the fear that no one else will. They don’t want to have to do this work because they don’t want these problems of inequality to exist, and they wear a burden to do this work that should be accounted for in funding
• Too often, social entrepreneurs are at the will of the expectations of funders. Rather than asking what social entrepreneurs need to do to feel confident in getting support from investors, investors need to start asking themselves what they can do to better serve these organizations doing community-saving work. Investors should question their qualifications for setting standards for work outside of their lived experiences and in communities they likely have privilege over
• There is a point where we need to ask whether something is actually creating the impact it was intended to, but we also need to investigate: why is it that those questions are usually only asked of Black and Brown social entrepreneurs at the early stage? There is a lack of trust in Black and Brown leaders. We can’t get to the conversation around metrics because we haven’t agreed on values
• When thinking about how investors can become more equitable and less risk averse when investing in Black and Brown communities, the question is not for BIPOC — Black, Indigenous, people of color — communities to answer. It is a question of bias. Funders must find ways to unlock bias in funding and granting policies
• Risk mitigation is at the core of this conversation. One tactical thing for investors to think about is giving more unrestricted capital. We have to trust that the people living and working in the communities we’re trying to help will do the work in the best interest of those communities
• Along with funders, intermediaries, like the Center for Civic Innovation (CCI), should redefine their definitions of risk and who they are willing to support — both to make their own funding more equitable, but also because other funders may be using intermediaries as a risk mitigation measure
• Atlanta is a place that constantly challenges one’s own identity. There is a need to create a community in which people can show up in their entirety and reclaim their identity in all its layers

How You Can Help

Malika Whitley, Founder and CEO, ChopArt

• There are three ways, in addition to funding, to help ChopArt do its work. One is infrastructure build out — a lot of organizations like ChopArt need tech infrastructure, capacity infrastructure, etc.
• Another is advocating for teens to your state and city officials. There are no emergency shelters for homeless minors in Atlanta. None. We have had a major homeless boom due to COVID and there’s nowhere to send our teens. Even warming stations have restrictions for unaccompanied minors
• Shelters are at capacity and understaffed right now. Please go volunteer at your local shelter; please send them money and resources, especially safe houses for homeless minors. Go in and ask the leadership what they need. The stronger the overall ecosystem for homeless minors is, the better ChopArt can do its work

Rohit Malhotra, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Civic Innovation

• There are a lot of larger nonprofits that are intermediaries who split up and distribute funds to direct service providers, and who they distribute funds to matters. Just like we’re asking funders to do, if you are an intermediary, think about expanding who it is you are willing to work with and your definition of risk
• We need to put our values inside of our measurements. We need to stop focusing on outputs and focus on outcomes, but also we need to put measures of equity in KPIs to say, for example, if people benefitted, they benefitted without hurting 20 people along the way
• Re-think your KPIs as an organization. Do you just talk about equity and put out statements and hashtags, or do you have it actually embedded in your practices? We brought in a firm — Community Build Ventures — to help CCI bring KPIs with an equity lens across all of our programs
• Go to neighborhood meetings; the work happens at the neighborhood level. Washington doesn’t decide what’s happening with our school systems. A lot of Atlanta neighborhoods look the same as they did under all administrations
• Be a shield for organizations like ChopArt; it is vital that Atlanta protects its Black and Brown genius as our greatest asset to our society and our economy. We are not the Silicon Valley of the South or whatever everyone wants us to be. We are the home of rethinking what it looks like to fight for civil and human rights for people. That is what is embedded in the soil of this city and state, and we have shown that. But we can’t keep sending Black women on the frontlines to take these hits

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Brady Press is an Associate Director at Changing Our World, where she specializes in building strategic corporate citizenship programs. She is a consultant to SDGCounting and StartingUpGood.