"It's our duty to do better and be a part of the change to narrow the race and gender gap in the entrepreneurial ecosystem."
Women and minorities still don’t have equal access to business opportunities in the U.S. due to systemic racial and gender-based inequality. This imbalance has prompted a number of agencies to take matters in their own hands.
Enter: The Diversity Marketing Consortium.
The group – which includes PR agency SourceCode Communications, employee experience shop Cheer Partners, influencer agency Social Studies, and performance marketing company Superbolt – aims to provide support to underrepresented businesses as soon as possible. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the number of women-owned businesses declined by 25 percent between February and April 2020, while the number of Black and Latinx owned businesses decreased by 41 percent and 32 percent, respectively. To help fix this, the Diversity Marketing Consortium is partnering with Harlem Capital, early-stage venture capital firm committed to investing in underrepresented founders, to provide $1.5 million in pro bono marketing services to women and minority-led startups on a bi-annual basis.
"It’s our duty to do better and be a part of the change to narrow the race and gender gap in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. While there is still a lot of work to do as a society to ensure that diverse founders are given more opportunities, the Diversity Marketing Consortium is committed to using our skills and resources to help level the playing field," said Greg Mondshein, founder of the Diversity Marketing Consortium and managing partner of SourceCode Communications. The recipient startups of the marketing services will include companies in Harlem Capital’s portfolio as well as other startups via an open call for applicants and HCP's pitch competition. "As a black-led investment firm focused on economically empowering women and minority founders, we are driven by our charge to help underrepresented startup teams thrive," said Harlem Capital Managing Partner Henri Pierre-Jacques.