The following is an extended version of the piece that appears in our July 2021 issue.
(From left) Melody Short, Rasheeda Creighton and Kelli Lemon of The Jackson Ward Collective
When Kelli Lemon was opening the Urban Hang Suite RVA cafe in Jackson Ward in 2018, she navigated everything from zoning to deciding on a plumber. “Although I was well connected in this city, I had some challenges,” she says.
Noting her own obstacles, she heard from other Black entrepreneurs who were reluctant to pursue opening or expanding their own businesses due to the difficulty.
“I just was kind of looking around and saying, ‘Well, there’s got to be a way that there’s some help out there for small Black businesses to get their businesses at a proper shape where they could possibly buy the building that their business is in,’ which creates generational wealth, which helps set their family up for success in the future. I’m watching my non-Black friends do this; how do we set this up for our own, especially in an area of the nation [Jackson Ward] that is known as the birthplace of Black entrepreneurship?”
Last year, Lemon met with Rasheeda Creighton of the consulting company 3Fifty Group and Melody Short, co-owner of the Richmond Night Market, to create The Jackson Ward Collective, a hub connecting Black entrepreneurs with resources to establish and grow their businesses.
The trio originally planned a 2022 launch, but the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 at the hands of Minneapolis police became a catalyst for nationwide protests resulting in an outpouring of support for Black businesses and prompted them to push up their starting date to just over eight months ago in late 2020.
“We were bombarded with people asking how can they help,” Lemon says. “Unfortunately, the death of an unarmed Black man woke a lot of America up in terms of how we weren’t equal in a lot of different ways, and so I think the Black businesses were getting a little bit overwhelmed with the opportunity, but again the resources, the guidance still wasn’t there.”
Creighton says that there are already wonderful assistance programs available for minorities, but what most lack is a focus on Black business ownership and guidance from Black business owners. “We are Black women who are also entrepreneurs, who understand the journey and have a cultural competency that comes with that that makes it easier for our members to hear us, hear the feedback we give them, take the guidance and get the connections they need to be successful,” she says.
Offered to all Jackson Ward Collective members, this Black Ribbon Cutting Ceremony celebrated the opening of St. Luke Legacy Center’s Laburnum Avenue location. (Photo by Courtney Jones)
The collective uses an individualized approach where members set up at least three to four meetings per year (but as many as suits them) with one of the co-founders to monitor their progress and assess their needs during their different stages of growth. Resources available include microgrants, “Ask the Expert” seminars, networking events, social connections with other Black business owners and referrals to assistance programs, as well as access to Black service providers such as accountants, lawyers and staff members. The collective has nearly 200 members and more than 120 on its waiting list.
Partnerships with organizations such as the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center, Metropolitan Business League (MBL) and Capital One also support Black business growth. Capital One Executive Vice President Andy Navarrete says via email, “Capital One was very intentional in partnering with organizations that are breaking down the structural barriers to racial equity by driving economic growth and narrative changes to correct perceptions about the Black community.” It’s one piece of the company’s Impact Initiative, an initial $200 million multiyear commitment to advance socioeconomic mobility and close equity gaps. To date, Capital One via its partnership with the collective has provided 50 Black-owned small businesses with access to funding during the pandemic, training and technical assistance, and peer-to-peer mentoring opportunities.
Lemon says, “I think where Capital One and VCC [Virginia Community Capital] and MBL and all of those come in is that we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. There are already services and organizations out there that are doing the work for these small businesses, but they do not have the reach for the Black businesses, so it’s great for us to be able to connect those.”
Community connections are essential for the advancement of Black entrepreneurship. Navarrete says the collective “seeks to connect Black entrepreneurs with one another, and then to partners who can provide the right level of professional support, education and access to resources. Together, this network supports healthy business growth for sustainability and true equity within the small-business landscape in the Richmond region.”
Noting partnerships with other business incubators, Creighton says they want to connect Black entrepreneurs with the resources that will best assist them to meet their goals. “There’s no need for us to duplicate work,” she says, noting that a great example of that is the VCU Entrepreneurship Academy. Created in partnership with The Jackson Ward Collective and Activation Capital and offered through the VCU da Vinci Center, the academy allows students and community members to take advantage of education and training to learn entrepreneurial skills.
“We get a lot of questions about, ‘How are you different?’ ‘Are you guys competitive?’ This isn’t a competition. This is about ensuring that people have access because, for whatever reasons, Black entrepreneurs have been heavily underrepresented and have not had access even though people have felt like they did,” Creighton says.
Ownership is a focus of the collective’s mission statement. The co-founders hope to form a nonprofit foundation to advance this goal and expand beyond the city.
“Richmond is our home and our start, but it is not our end,” Creighton says. “It is where we will build this model, and then when it is time, we will take this out to some of the other lesser-known ‘Black Wall Street’ cities around the country.”
