Don’t mentor us, Instead, give us money…. or you could do both.

The thing about being mentored as a person from a marginalized group is: you can see through the fakeness and the unwillingness to be financially supported.

You can honestly do both. You can mentor Women or Black people and financially support us at the same time.

It’s terrible that there are so many programs that are set up to Mentor and accelerate tech start-ups founded by Black people or women but at the end of the day, only a small percentage are financially supported. There are pitch events that there’s barely any attention being paid to when a black person presents their ideas, prototypes, or tech startups to people that actually do have the money and power to financially provide(VCs, stakeholders). It’s up to you, to be honest with yourself and actually support us in ways that will be very helpful to us a.k.a. financially support us.

According to: www.cnbc.com “Black and Latin founders have received just 2.6% of VC funding so far in 2020” Yet there are multiple fellowships and mentorship programs for black founders.

If you want to support us rightfully so, you should definitely listen to what the person needs and not what you think the person needs. Be very intentional about what they want you to do for them. Ask them exactly how you can help them instead of assuming and doing what you think is right for them.

This is why I say you can mentor and financially support at the same time. When you have those closed-door meetings to make decisions that potentially affect Black people and Black Tech start-ups in general, be the voice that they want you to be not the voice that you think they want you to be.