Supporting Black Entrepreneurs in Detroit

In 2018, native Detroiter and Black entrepreneur, Dwan Dandridge was working on a development project in the city that required $1 million in capital. He began pitching to social impact investors and eventually found a group willing to invest $250k with a revolving line of credit.

While the funding was a positive step, Dandridge was profoundly disturbed by the fact that this group was neither from Detroit nor Black. He had been unable to find local investors willing to support his project.

DWAN DANDRIDGE

“I wanted to participate in the revitalization of my hometown and to be able to do so I had to go outside of the state to people who don’t look like me in order to do it,” he said. “I found that power dynamic highly unsettling, and realized that the city was in need of a pot of money for Black entrepreneurs that is controlled and managed by a Black Detroiter.”

So, in 2019, he launched Black Leaders Detroit with a very unique funding strategy.

In addition to a conventional giving approach, the organization set up a membership, by which members donate $1 per week. The goal is to reach 1 million+ members.

“Philanthropy can shift at any moment, but individuals can become members at this low entry point, allowing those who believe in fairness and want to support entrepreneurs in the city to do so without a large financial barrier,” said Dandridge.

And it’s working.

To date Black Leaders Detroit has distributed over $3.2 million directly into the hands of 540 entrepreneurs of African descent.

“60% of these businesses are owned by Black women, and collectively they employ over 2000 individuals who are largely Detroit residents,” he said.

An example Dandridge points to is Janna Kay Charcuterie. The company was invited to participate in Bedrock’s Winter Markets but didn’t have the funds to support the amount of product that would be needed to do so.

“The Gilbert Family Foundation referred the business owner to us, and we were able to provide her with a no-interest loan,” said Dandridge. “As a result, the company then exceeded the average revenue most companies achieve within the eight weeks at the Winter Market.”

The application criteria for a grant or no-interest loan are straightforward: businesses must have been in operation for at least one year, be located in Detroit, and be majority-owned by entrepreneurs of African descent.

GRANT WINNER

“We’ve received feedback that upon hearing of us and our funding criteria, some people think it’s too good to be true,” he said. “There is a hope that has been absent among Black entrepreneurs when it comes to equal access to capital, and Black Leaders Detroit is working to change that.”

Dandridge says he started the organization with the idea to offer grants and no interest funds but had no blueprint for how it would work. So he followed David Contorer’s Hebrew Free Loan Detroit model and tweaked it to fit the Black entrepreneur community.

Along the way, many local corporations, organizations, and small businesses have become funding partners, including the Gilbert Family Foundation, Walker Miller Energy Services, Bank of America, Chase, Comerica, Flagstar Bank, Huntington Place, the McGregor Fund, the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation, the Ford Foundation and more.

Good Cakes and Bakes invites their customers to donate their change. The Congregation has done the same.

Regarding the impact the organization hopes to make, Dandridge says, “We have a lot of talented entrepreneurs in Detroit that are ready to scale and some are still coming out of crisis due to COVID,” he says. “We want and need as a city for them to get the same level of opportunities as the bigger companies that seem to get the majority of support.”

The businesses are, in turn, impacting their communities in several ways.

“These entrepreneurs have a connection to the city of Detroit,” he said. “They are hiring other Detroiters, and most have some sort of social mission they have assigned themselves. These things set a great example in our communities for the residents and for the next generation.”

About the progress the organization has made to date, Dandridge says, “I live in a funny space between being excited about the things we’ve been able to accomplish but also tormented by wanting to be able to do more, faster.”

Currently, membership stands at 12,000 with an ambitious goal to reach 20,000 by the end of the year.

“We have a long way to go to raise $52 million and to meet the needs of deserving entrepreneurs in Detroit.”

To that end, Black Leaders Detroit has initiated a Ride for Equity Fundraiser – an annual 377-mile, seven-day bike ride from Detroit to Mackinaw Island.

RIDE FOR EQUITY

“This year we added community conversations in some of the cities we stop in, bringing people together to discuss ways in which we can further support equity in the state of Michigan,” said Dandridge. “That’s my favorite part of the ride now.”

The future of Black Leaders Detroit is clear – to grow the funds to be able to support more Black entrepreneurs in Detroit. And in closing Dandridge also says, “I hope this can be a model for other cities with similar issues.”

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