On June 12, 2020, Knight Foundation announced its support for three national organizations that are committed to expanding opportunities and creating more equitable access for Black and Latino entrepreneurs in Miami. Click here to see the press release. Knight’s Raul Moas shares more below.

Now is a time for action and accountability. At Knight Foundation, we believe equitable, inclusive and participatory communities are essential for a healthy democracy. This core belief drives our Miami program, and today we are advancing this commitment by announcing our support for three organizations that are making our entrepreneurial community more accessible and equitable:

• Black Girl Ventures ($250,000): To increase access to financial and social capital for Black and Brown women entrepreneurs through coaching, crowdfunding and community by supporting the launch of Black Girl Ventures’ Miami chapter.

• Culture Shift Labs ($250,000): To promote greater collaboration among Black and Latino venture capitalists, institutional investors and entrepreneurs by supporting the expansion of Culture Shifting Weekend to Miami.

• The Plug ($250,000): To drive equity within growing innovation hubs by bringing transparency to tech companies’ racial diversity, gender representation and compensation practices through the development of the PLEXUS analytics platform.

Each of these organizations has been leading the conversation around the country on how to support a truly inclusive startup and innovation economy. We’re delighted that they see Miami as the next frontier in asking sometimes uncomfortable questions about who benefits from opportunity, and who doesn’t.

Miami’s startup community has grown by leaps and bounds over the last several years. In 2019, Knight Foundation partnered with Startup Genome to take a closer look at our entrepreneurial community and offer a roadmap for how we might grow to the next level. The insights offered in Startup Genome’s assessment, to be released next Wednesday, are especially relevant as we respond to the opportunities and challenges 2020 has brought us. 

To ground these insights and discuss where we go next, we’re hosting a conversation with leaders from our startup community on Wednesday, June 17. We hope you’ll join us. To register, click here. It’s going to take all of us to build a Miami where everyone can benefit from the promises that innovation and entrepreneurship offer—expanded individual opportunity and economic inclusion.

Onward.

Raul Moas is Miami program director at Knight Foundation. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @rmoas.

Image (top): From Black Girl Ventures Foundation.