As the calendar switches to 2022, Black Girl Ventures is mapping out its plans for the year, including a new startup accelerator program, to help elevate more female founders of color.
The D.C. nonprofit, which supports and drives funding to early-stage companies led by Black and brown women, is accepting applications for three efforts targeting female entrepreneurs, who have long received a fraction of the venture capital dollars secured by their white male counterparts.
Here are three open applications for Black Girl Ventures programs right now, with the first as a new offering:
- BGV NextGen: For this new eight-week accelerator, the organization plans to pick 25 students ages 18 to 24 enrolled in Historically black colleges and universities. Each selected applicant will receive a $5,000 stipend in addition to other resources and mentorship. Then seven of the “top” participants will participate in a pitch competition for a shot at more funding and support. Applications are open until Feb. 4. BGV expects to make its decisions by Feb. 16.
- Change Agent Fellowship: The nine-month fellowship is built to help Black and brown women founders and “ecosystem builders” develop leadership skills and foster support for underrepresented early-stage entrepreneurs. It comes with a $10,000 stipend in addition to in-kind resources, and runs March 25 through Dec. 1. Applications are open until Feb. 15.
- BGV Pitch: Black Girl Ventures is again preparing for its flagship crowdfunding-style pitch competition, in which startups present their businesses and audience members vote for their favorites with their own money via its Raisify tech platform. Applications to pitch in the spring are now open.
Despite increasing attention and awareness of the inequities plaguing the investment landscape, there’s still work to do, the organization wrote in an email newsletter to the community. And though the number of businesses created by women of color is growing, BGV wrote, the amount of venture investments flowing to Black and brown women still sits between 1% and 2%. On the other side of the terms table, Blacks and Latinos each still comprise only 4% of VC professionals nationally, according to the National Venture Capital Association’s Venture Forward arm, which further perpetuates the problem.
“We know that there needs to be more people at the table, at the bar of opportunity,” BGV founder and CEO Shelly Bell said in a March 2021 interview. “How do we get them there? And how do we just keep the pipeline going of how you can start a business and you can grow a business and sustain a business as a Black and brown woman entrepreneur?”
The answer lies partly in efforts like those of BGV, which has established chapters in Philadelphia, Miami, Houston and others. BGV was launched in 2016 as a meetup in Southeast D.C. with 30 other Black women with food Bell cooked herself. The group has since evolved into a multimarket push to close the capital gap, striking partnerships with Visa, Nike, Warby Parker and other big-name brands, as well as Halcyon and others locally.
Black Girl Ventures has funded more than 130 women of color and hosted 30 pitch programs across 12 cities. And Bell, who’s grown her team to nine employees, has raised $2.6 million herself from the likes of PayPal, Google and Kroger. She was a DC Inno Fire Awards winner and Washington Business Journal Diversity in Business Awards honoree of 2021.
She also started the year with a new name — now Shelly Omilâdè Bell, or Omi for short — to capture “the summation of who I am, what my purpose is and what my destiny is,” she wrote in an email to friends and community members. “Shelly means the meadow on the ledge. Omilâdè means the water that clears the path. Bell means sound usually used to direct or signal movement or action,” she wrote, adding: “I am leaning all the way into my purpose and so should you!”
