The Wise Fool: Grow your Equity Anti Racism Edition
Sharing a new way you can constructively support Black and minority entrepreneurs in your community
This is a little unusual for a Wise Fool occasional newsletter, but I wanted to share with you an opportunity that might make a big difference for your organization and your community.
As many of you know, I have been working for the last couple of years on a start-up called Trep House. Trep House is the brainchild of Kemo A’akhutera, and it’s a virtual-first superhub that provides a full range of startup and growth support for what we call New Majority founders — Black and other minority entrepreneurs and small business owners, mostly under 40. The services Trep House offers range from training to mentoring to community-building to fundraising support, and everything is designed to place Black and minority entrepreneurs in a context where they feel fully at home, where their challenges and their opportunities are fully understood and supported.
Research indicates that Black and many minority founders feel ill at ease with majority white startup environments, and they often encounter misunderstandings and mismatches between their needs and those of other founders. Trep House is trying to eliminate that experience and support a new generation of sustainable, growing Black- and minority-owned businesses.
Trep House is a member-based organization - founders pay a fee to access the services. But if we tried to pay for all the support Trep House provides through memberships alone, it would be too expensive for all but a few New Majority founders. And even at our current low rates, many potentially impactful New Majority founders still can’t participate.
That’s where you come in.
Trep House is looking for sponsors. Sponsorships start at only $5,000, and every sponsorship level includes:
Scholarships for members who couldn’t afford to participate otherwise. Scholarships can be for founders who live in your own community, for an industry that you care about, or for any New Majority founder who needs an extra boost. This can be a great way to meet your organization’s equity and diversity goals, because it gives these founders resources and connections that supplement what you have locally.
Recognition for your organization, both on Trep House’s web site and events, and with a neat digital badge that you can use on your own materials to show your support of your community’s New Majority founders.
Workshops for your organization or community members on a variety of topics, such as ways to make your local ecosystem more inclusive of New Majority founders and ways to support increased entrepreneurship in your community.
You’ll see the specific Sponsorship categories and their benefits below. To learn more about your options or talk about how your organization can customize its sponsorship, drop me a line at della@trephouse.co. If you need it, we can also coordinate with the Good Hood Foundation to make your sponsorship tax deductible.
Trep House is already one of the most rewarding and exciting things I’ve done in my career, and I’m eager to see where we can go. We can make a real, meaningful change for communities across the county, and I’d love for you to come along.
Hugs,
Della