“When you’ve been hearing no all day every day, and then someone tells you ‘yes,’ and here’s $1,000…that’s the gas that fills up your inspiration tank right there,” James Oliver, Jr. told Hypepotamus.
Oliver is the founder of the ParentPreneur Foundation, which empowers Black entrepreneur parents through grants and community support.
As an entrepreneur himself, Oliver knows that $1,000 doesn’t seem like a lot in the world of startups, where ventures get coverage for raising millions of dollars early on. But the ParentPreneur Foundation is dedicated to helping Black founders navigate the investing space and land some capital to get started and keep going.
The latest round of grants, totaling $30,0000, is co-sponsored by The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center. Applications are open now and ultimately a new group of Black parent founders will receive $1,000.
Nicola Corzine, Executive Director of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, said that the grants are about “ensuring a better path forward for the flow of capital to our entrepreneurs of color.”
In video form, applicants are asked to answer 1) what would $1,000 mean to you as an entrepreneur? and 2) What challenges have you faced raising capital? Applications for this round close on November 19.
The answers collected have been heartfelt and raw so far. Kimberly Evans, the Charlotte-based entrepreneur behind Just Her Rideshare, said that winning such a grant would be a “boost of confidence” as she works to scale her startup.
This is the ParentPreneur Foundation’s fifth round of grants. To date, the foundation has grown a support community of 1,500 Black ParentPreneurs across the country.