The Rebuild The Dream Innovation Fund is partnering with Essence and Prince to launch our newest initiative, #YesWeCode, at the 20th Annual Essence Festival on July 4-7 in New Orleans. On Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, Essence Magazine released the following press release, announcing this partnership.
#YesWeCode asks: What if you were given the opportunity to flip the current American status quo / economic landscape upside down? What if youth from the east side of Detroit, the southside of
#YesWeCode is a response to the negative image of low-opportunity youth in America. The unnerving death of Trayvon Martin has given us an opportunity to create a bold, game-changing strategy.
Chicago, the fourth quarter of New Orleans, etc. came together in collaboration to build amazing game-changing apps, support one another in partnership, mentorship and entrepreneurship and to begin elevating the condition of low-opportunity neighborhoods across the country? What if we mobilized the nation around the #YesWeCode initiative to train at least 100,000 youth from low-opportunity neighborhoods to become high-level computer programmers?
#YesWeCode is a response to the negative image of low-opportunity youth in America. The unnerving death of Trayvon Martin has given us an opportunity to create a bold, game-changing strategy.
“I always remember how Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was seen as a justification for his murder,” says Van Jones, the founder of The Rebuild the Dream Innovation Fund and #YesWeCode. “But billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wears hoodies — and nobody shoots at him. So let’s flip the script: let’s give our hoodie-wearing youth the same tools, training and technology that the kids taking over Silicon Valley have. I hope #YesWeCode creates 100,000 ‘Mark Zuckerberg’s’ — and that a whole lot of them look just like Trayvon Martin.”
So, what if youth of color, girls, and low-income youth were given the space and motivation to “geek-out” during a hack-a-thon, a robotics competition or a pitch mixer? Is that the secret sauce to increasing their economic employability and their neighborhood’s social prosperity? No, not entirely. You are. And you’re equipped with all the tools they’ll need – energy, excitement, wisdom, cultural values and tradition, coding knowledge, business and investment “know-how”, passion for economic justice, a commitment to thriving communities and to diversifying technology innovation.
[alert color=blue title=”What is Crowdfunding?” align=center]#Crowdfunding is the use of small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a business venture. Crowdfunding is a multi-billion dollar industry that makes use of the easy accessibility of vast networks of friends, family and colleagues through social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to get the word out about a new business and attract investors. Crowdfunding will increase entrepreneurship by expanding the pool of investors from whom funds can be raised beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives and venture capitalists. [/alert]
According to a report by economist Robert W. Fairlie, minority small businesses are less likely to receive small business loans than non-minority firms and are more likely to receive lower loan amounts than non-minority firms. In addition to loan amounts, minorities are more likely to receive higher interest rates even with credit profiles that are equal to those of non-minority borrowers. Lending discrimination suits against many major lenders in many cases present evidence that show patterns of discriminatory lending practices against minority applicants.
When we look at the lack of capital access and observe some of the banking practices, the apparent reality is that the banking institutions have failed to properly address the needs of minority entrepreneurs and small business owners.
In this same report Fairlie’s research suggests, “If minority-owned firms would have reached economic parity in 2002, these firms would have employed over 16.1 million workers and grossed over $2.5 trillion in receipts.” The lack of access to capital is not only inhibiting the potential of minority small businesses, it is also limiting the potential of our economy as a whole.
Small businesses are a viable function of our communities’ character. Living places that we frequent and interact with because of the personal and local significance they have in our lives. Growing up in a family business I witnessed first hand how my family worked through the process of building and expanding their business. Operating within a historically African American community in Los Angeles, my mother’s approach was community oriented as a majority of our customers, investors and community supporters were community members. For everything that she put into supporting the community, there was a return that came in the form of a sale, referral or marketing message that supported the business in a variety of ways.
Source: Huff Post – Salim Mhunzi
Currently, small businesses are not allowed to raise funds from unaccredited investors. Title III of the JOBS act will enable companies to raise money from unaccredited investors. Title III is still pending, but is expected to pass in mid-2014. When Title III passes, which will allow unaccredited investors to invest, there will be limitations on how much a company can raise from unaccredited investors. It is expected that companies will be limited to a $1M maximum. However, companies will be able to do a concurrent raise from accredited investors. So, if you’re looking for $3M, you could raise $1M from unaccredited investors and $2M from accredited investors.
Among all companies that concluded successful rewards, equity, or debt campaigns, quarterly revenues increased by an average of 24 percent post crowdfunding (not including amounts raised by crowdfunding).
Of particular note: For equity-based campaigns, we saw a shocking increase of 351 percent quarterly revenue increase.
The results indicate that crowdfunding positively impacts sales, and those that run equity-based campaigns see the greatest quarterly increase.
New job creators also play an outsized role in the development of innovative new products and services that can revolutionize industries and transform entire sectors of our economy. Research shows that innovation has been responsible for approximately two-thirds of our country’s economic growth since World War II.
Empowering these businesses, and embracing an inclusive view of entrepreneurship, is essential to our long-term economic growth and global competitiveness. We need more people across the country to start the types of businesses that make our economy more competitive and our industries more innovative. That’s why we’re making strategic investments that focus on increasing access to capital for high-growth businesses, strengthening entrepreneurial skills training and building regional entrepreneurial ecosystems (through clusters and growth accelerators).
We must also make the necessary investments in STEM fields so that we can have a workforce with the skills and expertise to compete and win in an increasingly competitive global economy.
By making these investments, we will build on our nation’s economic recovery, inject new energy and momentum into our economy, bolster new business starts and leverage the greatest driver of innovation and job creation in the world—the American entrepreneur.
America21 defines The Innovation Economy as the period in the late 20th and early 21st centuries marked by radical socioeconomic changes brought about by the following:
[alert color=yellow align=center] Further globalization of commerce ; democratization of information ; exponential growth of entrepreneurship, and ; acceleration of new knowledge creation [/alert]
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Inclusive Competitiveness is girded by three pillars:
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apparent reality is that the 