Danielle Deavens was frustrated. It was the holiday season of 2016, and, having made a pact with herself to buy gifts exclusively from Black-owned businesses, she found herself at an impasse. Though she knew there had to be companies selling a variety of products somewhere in the marketplace, she could not find them, despite her best efforts. Surely, there was a better way, she thought, as she lamented the situation to her partner, Doug Spencer.
“It was just a really clunky and disjointed experience,” Deavens said. “My cofounder, Doug, and I thought, why don’t we learn more about why this is such a disjointed experience and then work on fixing that?”
Seven years later, that frustration has turned into Bold Xchange, a corporate gifting platform that works with companies to curate employee gift and incentive boxes from Black-owned businesses. By serving as an intermediary between corporate partners and Black-owned companies, Deavens and Spencer help businesses incentivize their employees in meaningful ways while amplifying the reach of entrepreneurs who might not otherwise have access to such a large audience.
Deavens and Spencer’s path to Bold Xchange began when they met as undergraduates at North Carolina’s Elon University. For a hobby, the pair started a blog about Black people who were pursuing their dreams, but as entrepreneurs began reaching out to them asking to be featured, they saw that they might be onto something bigger. They decided to turn their blog into a platform for amplifying Black-owned brands, but their focus shifted from individual consumers to companies when they received seven orders from the same email address. They realized that the person making the multiple purchases was likely buying something for their entire team, which gave them the idea that there might be a way to make an even bigger impact via the corporate gifting space. When Home Depot reached out for them to curate a Black History Month box for their employees in 2021, it was the sign they needed.
Since that Home Depot partnership in 2021, Bold Xchange has gone on to work with major corporate players such as Centene Corp., CarMax, State Farm and Capital One, as well as smaller firms such as Steady MD, Venture for America and St. Louis’ Arch Grants, to which Deavens and Spencer credit their ability to scale so successfully after they were awarded startup funding and membership in its 2020 class.
“As we learned more and more about St. Louis and were planning to apply for Arch Grants, we were just excited about what was happening here, the diversity of the startup ecosystem here, but also the opportunity for us to move to a place that was affordable for us and affordable for our business to actually have a boots-on-the-ground presence,” Deavens says.
Since relocating to St. Louis thanks to Arch Grants, Deavens and Spencer have been thrilled with how well positioned they are to amplify Black-owned brands. As the pair notes, 96% of Black-owned companies do not have a single employee because their businesses do not generate enough income to sustain their founders or staff – something Deavens and Spencer hope they can address by connecting these businesses to a larger audience.
“We know that corporations have the means, but also the missions, to support organizations, specifically with diversity and inclusion,” Spencer says. “And so we’re trying to be the conduit between these larger organizations and the small Black-owned businesses, because we know that if we can help them grow their business through revenue, then they can employ that person that they never were able to employ or even employ themselves, which is often a challenge.”
Already, Deavens and Spencer have seen the impact their relationships have had on Black-owned businesses’ bottom lines. It’s not uncommon for them to hear from one of their brands that a single Bold Xchange order has gotten them through the month, or even the year, when they might have otherwise floundered. It’s an effect they see snowballing; as more brands come onto their platform, more want to come on, eager to be a part of something they see as not simply filling a void in the corporate gifting space but one that can have real impact on equity in entrepreneurship.
“I know that’s ambitious, but that’s the whole point of wanting to be a founder, of wanting to make a difference,” Spencer says. “And so, every day, we think that we can be that huge difference maker if we live out our mission.”
STLMade, an initiative of Greater St. Louis Inc., shines a light on people and ideas that are moving the region forward and contributing to make this a place where you can start something, you can get the support to stand out, and you can stay and make St. Louis yours.
