Entrepreneurship and Innovation : BIPOC Startup Resource List

Northeastern Resources

• First Gen Low Income Student Union (FGLISU)

• Los Huskies Student Group Coalition – Support for Latinx community

• Black Student Organizations – Provided by the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute

• Women’s Interdisciplinary Society of Entrepreneurship (WISE) – Student-led group supporting female entrepreneurs

• Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative - Programing, mentoring and support for female entrepreneurs

• Women in Business Club – Student-led club

• Alumni Relations Entrepreneurship Resources

Resources for BIPOC Founders

• Bloomfund – Grant platform for non-profits in the areas of visual arts, literature, research and educators

• ICON360 – Grant platform for fashion designers

• Your Friends in New York – Grant platform for creative-based businesses

• Women Founders of Color

• IFUNDWomen of Color – Crowdfunded grant, coaching and mentorship platform for women of color,

• Digital Undivided – Research, training, incubation and coaching organization for black and latinx women

  • START – Virtual training program

  • BIG – Incubator

  • Confident Founders – Leadership coaching

• Do You Fund – Micro investment platform

• Code2040 – Accelerator, fellowship and mentor platform for black and latinx tech students

• NewMe - Mentorship, specialized curriculums, and capital investment for underrepresented founders

• Black Girl Ventures – Grants, training and mentoring platform for black/brown female founders, based in Birmingham Alabama, Durham North Carolina, Houston Texas, Miami Florida and Philadelphia Pennsylvania

• Black Founders – Grants, Hackathons and conferences for BIPOC founders, based in San Francisco California, Atlanta Georgia, New York New York, and Austin Texas

• Backstage Capital – Invests in BIPOC founders

• Black Upstart – Training program for black founders

• Black Innovation Alliance – Funding, training and programming for black founders

• Allies in Arts – Grants for LGBTQ+, BIPOC and women artists

• New Voices Fund – Supporting women founders of color

Resources for Female Founders

• Her Big Idea – Grant platform for female founders, Deadline 7/1

• Mom’s as Entrepreneurs – Scholarship, grant and training platform for sole founders who are mothers

• The Red Backpack Fund – Crowdfunding grant platform for female founders

• The TL Effect – Quarterly grant program for female founders

• Poise Bounce Back Grants – COVID19 grants, deadline closed May 28th

Resources for All Founders

• NEW ENGLAND IMPACT INVESTING INITIATIVE – Impact investing group

• Techstars Accelerator – Open to all founders

• America’s Seed Fund – Grants for high risk/high impact technology small businesses from the National Science Foundation

• Kauffman Foundation – Grant search engine

• VentureWell – Entrepreneurship research, funding and programing

• Business for All – COVID19 Small business grant program, Preference given to entrepreneurs who are women, people of color, LGBTQ+, connected to military, or have disabilities

• Beauty Changes Lives – Grant program for beauty focused businesses

• Foundation for Contemporary Arts – Grant program for choreographers, composers, playwrights, directors, visual artists, and poets, who have lost income due to COVID19

• Lightship Capital Grant Program – Grants for BIPOC owned businesses based in the Midwestern United States

• Fundera – Small business loan comparison platform

• SBA Lender Match – Online tool for finding lenders provided by the US Small Business Administration

Research

• Diversity Research Guide – Key diversity research, provided by Snell Library

• Boston History Archives & Northeastern University Historical Archives – Historical collections for the university and the City of Boston in the areas of civil rights, African American, Asian American, Latino, GLBTQA, and women, provided by Snell Library Archives

• Civil Rights & Restorative Justice Project – Conducts historical research and supports policy initiatives on anti-civil rights violence in the United States and other miscarriages of justice during the period 1930-1970, provided by Northeastern School of Law

• GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – Entrepreneurship research organization

• The 2019 State of Women Owned Businesses Report

• Investing In and With Entrepreneurs and Leaders of Color – Data on BIPOC businesses from Mission Investors Exchange

  • Racial Equality Library

• The State of Black Women during COVID-19 – Research report from Digital Undivided

• Diversity, innovation and entrepreneurship: where are we and where should we go in future studies? – Study on the importance of broadening the future of entrepreneurial research

• Jane Buchan on Women in Finance

• Examining Entrepreneurship Through Indigenous Lenses – Argues against the dominance of the US Model of Entrepreneurship and that research methods need to reflect better the variety of entrepreneurial activities around the globe

• TED The Real Reason Female Entrepreneurs Get Less Funding

• Neither Here nor There? How the New Geography of Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship Disadvantages African Americans – Study that compares an immigrant majority and an African American majority Chicago neighborhoods looking at the effects of social capital

• Capital Constraints and Industry Mix Implications for African-American Business Success – “African-Americans are more likely to start a business, yet, are less likely to succeed. Well- documented discriminatory practices by industry sectors exclude minorities from lucrative business opportunities. This paper examines participation of African-American owned businesses in key industries to assess implications for revenue generation and hiring potential”

• The Passway of Women Entrepreneurship: Starting from Social Capital with Open Innovation, through to Knowledge Sharing and Innovative Performance – “This research examines the role of social capital and whether it becomes a supporting or hindering factor in developing the creative industry of women entrepreneurs by examining the role of information sharing and innovations.”

• Women Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review to Outline the Boundaries of Scientific Literature – Systematic Review of 2,848 articles on women entrepreneurship, “In recent years, the study of women entrepreneurship has experienced great growth, gaining a broad consensus among academics and contributing above all to understanding all those factors that explain the difficulty of women in undertaking an entrepreneurial career.”

• Are the Intentions to Entrepreneurship of Men and Women Shaped Differently? The Impact of Entrepreneurial Role-Model Exposure and Entrepreneurship Education – “How the exposure to role models and entrepreneurship education shape perceptions and attitudes toward entrepreneurship differently in men and women is analyzed in the context of Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior.”

• A Survivor Uses Sweat Lodges, Talking Circles and Dream Catchers to Bring Healing to Native Women