When Covid-19 began, Colorado’s public and private sector came together quickly to fight the virus.
Dave Mayer saw the all-hands-on-deck efforts related to Covid-19 and envisioned something similar for racial equity.
Following George Floyd’s death, Mayer knew it was time to take action locally.
“I was inspired by how the tech community came together in Colorado as well as nationally,” said Mayer, founder and CEO of boutique recruiting firm Technical Integrity. “After George Floyd’s murder, I said to myself ‘we need a similar movement and that Colorado is in a position to lead the nation.’”
So, Mayer, very much a connector in the state’s startup and tech scene, reached out to a handful of contacts, including Aaron Clark of Equity Consultants of Colorado.
As the two conversed, Mayer and Clark landed on a singular charge for this proposed coalition.
“What will it take to actually support Black communities across Colorado?” Clark said.
From there, 14 white leaders came together in June to form the Colorado Tech Coalition for Equity and Inclusion. Members include Mayer, Brad Feld and Jaclyn Hester of Foundry Group, Natty Zola of Matchstick Ventures and Liz Giorgi of soona, to a name a few.
The coalition was created to broaden access and improve equity in Colorado, while designing better pathways to provide tangible assistance to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color working as entrepreneurs or in a startup in the state.
Clark and Equity Consultants of Colorado were hired to lead these efforts and were very intentional about the makeup of the group.
“The coalition is full of amazing white allies, the entire group is white,” Clark said. “That’s by design.”
While there were discussions about creating a diverse group of leaders, Clark said it was crucial to launch this group with an all-white cohort.
“White leaders and white folks think we need to have diversity all the time and I appreciate that,” he said. “Systemic racism in our country and state is a problem that needs to be fixed very intentionally.”
“In order to change that, you all are going to have to do internal work and you are going to have to pay for it. And we don’t want to put that additional burden on Black founders,” he added. “We needed to have a space to have these white leaders to come together to work on personal biases.”
As part of the 8-weeks of training, each founding member is contributing hours of in-depth work to assess their own personal biases, followed by thorough anti-racist trainings.
A foundational tenet of the coalition is to understand and leverage the member’s white privilege to support the BIPOC community through creative, social and financial channels.
“Here are a bunch of white people that have had this inherent privilege,” Zola said. “Only once we’ve learned that, can we work together to be part of the solution."
As the program approaches its conclusion, the coalition will unveil its findings and an initial framework for creating sustainable impact to the BIPOC community.
The ultimate goal is for these leaders to chart a course of action for themselves, their companies and the broader Colorado ecosystem that will break down barriers and create a more just society for all.
Regardless of the outcomes, Clark said he already considers the coalition a success, but had some additional items that he’s hopeful will stem from this effort.
“It will be truly a success when we are seeing a numerical change toward equity; more POCs as founders, executives and board members,” he said.
