The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 10859, the name of Lewis MacDonald. Quietly please, on the 150th anniversary of Aberdeen Trade Union Council, this debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Can I ask those members who wish to speak in the debate, please, press their request to speak buttons now? I call on Lewis MacDonald to open the debate. Mr MacDonald, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a real honour to mark the 150th anniversary of Aberdeen Trade Union Council here today, just as it is indeed an honour personally to be designated as a consultative member of ATUC. I am grateful to all members across the chamber who have signed my motion and to those who will speak in the debate. I am delighted to that Donna Clark and Laura MacDonald from the Executive Committee of Aberdeen Trade Union Council are here with us. ATUC President Kathleen Kennedy and other colleagues would have been here too, were it not that this debate coincides with the annual gathering of the Scottish Trade Union Congress in Abymor, which of course they could not miss. My own party leader is there too, otherwise he would no doubt have hoped to take part in this debate. I know that Richard Leonard would want me to offer his congratulations to Aberdeen Trade Unionists on this important milestone, so highly does he value the contribution of all our trade councils. That movement had its origins in local societies of skilled crafts workers, bringing together members of a single craft in a town or city to protect wages, conditions and access to work. Such local societies made common cause with others in the same trade in other parts of the country, forming first federations and then amalgamated societies, the first national trade unions. However, at the same time as those were being formed, an equally important development was taking place. Where trade unions were formed from the coming together of members of a single trade in different places, trades councils were formed by workers joining hands across different trades and industries in a single area, and indeed that joining hands is what is symbolised in the badge of Aberdeen TUC. The trade union movement that we know today combines both those kinds of solidarity, both industrial and geographic, and Aberdeen Trade Council played a vital role in making that happen in the latter part of the 19th century. Even before then, Aberdeen was at the forefront of the workers movement. Local craft unions were active back in the 1700s, non-craft seafarers were combining to take industrial action as early as 1792, and an Aberdeen female operatives union led a five-week strike of textile factory workers back in 1834. Aberdeen trade unionists were among the first to organise across trades and among less skilled workers. In an industrial city, many miles from other industrial areas, local solidarity was as important as national trade unions, and it was from that recognition that Aberdeen Trade Council was born. That still matters for trade unionism in Aberdeen to this day. The offshore co-ordinating group in the oil and gas industry, for example, brings together unions of crafts and catering workers, seafarers and helicopter crews entirely in line with that long-established culture of working together across sectors. The creation of a single trades council in 1868 was the culmination of years of effort in that direction. Aberdeen trades councils soon had 50 delegates from more than 20 trades in such industries as construction, granite working and ship building, and from a society of general labourers as well. It was thanks to the leadership of the trades council that non-craft workers were able to join together in general and industrial unions earlier in Aberdeen than almost anywhere else. Dock labourers, seafarers, gas stokers and farm servants were all organised and affiliated through their local societies to Aberdeen trades council by the 1880s, a time when similar organisations were just getting started in other places. The trade union congress, representing trades unions and trades councils across Great Britain and Ireland, met in Aberdeen in 1884 with the president of Aberdeen trades council presiding. It was Aberdeen trades council, which called a conference in 1895 to address the issue of solidarity across different trades in Scotland, an initiative that led directly to the creation of the STUC. It is therefore fitting that today we debate the anniversary of Aberdeen trades council in the week of the STUC congress, as the two have been so closely linked from the outset. Not only that, but the STUC continues to represent local trades councils in a way that the STUC does not. Aberdeen trades union council has three delegates this week's Scottish congress, voting on the same basis as national trade unions. Jimmy Milne, who led Aberdeen trades council in the post-war years, went on to lead the STUC. The distinctive character of the STUC and of trade unionism in Scotland owes a great deal to the history and character of trade union organisation and action in Aberdeen. The unique circumstances of the Granite City and the need for local solidarity in the face of geographic disadvantage have been writ large, not just in Aberdeen, but in a Scottish trade union movement that sustains the same principle of diversity and the principle of solidarity at both national and regional level. So, too, with political action, the reverent C.C. MacDonald, the Gallic-speaking Minister of St Clement's Paris Church in Fiti, told the TUC, at its Aberdeen congress in 1884, that it is not enough for you to exercise the franchise. You must also represent yourselves. An Aberdeen trades council was one of the first in Britain to put forward independent working-class candidates for school boards for the local council and for Parliament. That tradition, too, remains strong. Leading lights in Aberdeen trades council in recent years, like Ronnie Webster and Jurgen Tominek, have also been leading lights in the local Labour Party and local government. Trade unionists working across trades, seeking political change and looking beyond their own members, too. Aberdeen trade unionists backed the recent action by local bus drivers in defence of their terms and conditions, just in the same way as the trades council came together to back the stone masons in 1868 and to organise the general strike in Aberdeen in 1926. However, that solidarity is not with local trade union members alone. Just as Aberdeen trades council took action in support of the victims of highland clearances in the 1890s, so it championed the cause of democracy in Chile and in South Africa in the 1980s, and it supports Syrian refugees in the northeast today. Aberdeen trade unionists will mark international workers memorial day at the memorial garden a week on Saturday. We will march together for Mayday, and we will also come together to mark St Andrew's day with a demonstration against racism and fascism. The vitality, solidarity and strength of Aberdeen trade unionism have played a major part in Scotland's story for 150 years and more. I am certain that that will continue to be the case for many years to come. Thank you very much, Mr MacDonald. I call Stuart Stevenson to be followed by Tom Mason. Mr Stevenson, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me start by congratulating Lewis on giving us the opportunity to debate the important milestone for the Aberdeen trade union council, and indeed for the whole of North East Scotland. It is always as well to remember what the world looked like in 1868. It was actually the year that the First TUC Congress took place in Manchester. It was the last year in which penal transportation to Australia took place, and it was the last year in which there was a public hanging. Across the water in the United States, the 14th amendment to the American constitution was passed, which gave freed slaves citizenship of the United States, a very different world from the world in which we live today. However, it is still a relevant matter that the trade council continues to operate after 150 years, continuing to promote and improve economic and social conditions for working people. Although it has witnessed a few name changes through the years, the council has remained active in its campaigns for dignity, equality and diversity in the workplace and beyond. Let us focus on that word beyond the council's campaigning. Although the name of the council might suggest that the council is only focused on the working class of the north-east of Scotland, the council is actually very much more than that. On Saturday 7 April, the A2UC held a protest in St Nicholas Square, showing solidarity with the people of Gaza after atrocities were committed against them on land day 2018. Even while celebrating its illustrious anniversary, the council found time to promote dignity, equality and diversity of those outside of Scotland. The council's involvement in foreign affairs goes back even further. There are various memorabilia in their Adelphi office. There is a Spanish flag used to wrap round the bodies of two Abardonians who died fighting during the Spanish Civil War. However, the council was initially created, as stated in its objectives to advance and protect the rights of Labour, as well as the wellbeing of the working class. To do that, the council took active roles, Lewis MacDonald has referred to some of them, in the trade and in municipal matters within Aberdeen, at a point where there were quite limited opportunities for ordinary folk to participate in the democratic process. Beyond Aberdeen, the council was a key player in the development of the trade union movement across Scotland, helping to find the SDUC in 1897, which is still very active today, as we have just also heard. As we have heard, Jimmy Milne and others have been senior officials in the SDUC. References have been made to the May Day rally, occurring annually every year since 1890. Known as Internal Workers Day, people across the globe take to the streets in celebration of Labourers and the working class. That is solidarity demonstrated for many, many years. As the council moves forward, the challenge is that it faces change only slightly. As joint president Tyrone Rutherford mentioned at the Aberdeen Civic reception in March, the goal has not changed, the tactics have. They still want to pass peanuts to maximised profits, and they will do that to anyone that they see fit. Victorian men and women showed up at the factory with no guarantee of work or pay, and they are not much different from the workers that deliver who race one another to get people's food orders. I hope that, moving forward, the A2UC continues to act as a catalyst for change, continues to support people in the time of need. It has been an important figurehead and practical source of trade union organisation in representation in Aberdeen and the north-east. Thank you very much. I call Tom Mason to be followed by Jackie Baillie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I remind you that I am a stillness Aberdeen City Council and a citizen of Aberdeen. I would like first to congratulate the Aberdeen Trade Union Council on their 150th anniversary. I feel that it is fair to say that, as a Conservative, I do not always agree with the positions that the council has taken. However, I am certainly willing to celebrate, particularly as it has been part of the history and heritage of Aberdeen for the past 150 years. The politics and influences coming out of the Adelphi, that those who are not familiar with Aberdeen are based, have been prominent over the years and have shaped many of the organisation and structures that we now have in Aberdeen. I myself was indirectly associated with the council via membership of the EIS for 20 years. Whilst I never quite thought the union was on my side, it did have other interests that kept me as a member. Some elements of the ADUC politics I do find somewhat challenging to go along with. For instance, attempts to protest at the Scottish Conference Party conference, for instance. I do feel that there has been occasions where parties and politics have been given too high a priority. However, on this 150th birthday, I do not wish to focus on disagreement. I see that this anniversary has been marked with receptions from the Scottish Trade Union Council, Aberdeen City Council and an organised rally on International Women's Day. 150 years is certainly no mean feat. The context that we use to consider past events is always valuable. I think that it is wise to reflect upon the many different social changes that have been taking place over that time. When the ADUC was formed 150 years ago, the Prime Minister was Benjamin Tisraeli. A modernising one nation conservative, if it is not too bold to mention. In the late 19th century, working conditions for a significant percentage of the population were far more dangerous than any of us can contemplate were entertained today. Some of the foremost achievements of the trade unions have been that change in conditions, particularly at the turn of the 20th century and the move towards sustained industrialisation. Aberdeen City Council has a very proud industrial history. The Granite City was at the forefront of the ship building, fishing efforts in the 19th century. That industrial trend continues to this day when the importance of oil and gas is clear for all to see. Indeed, I am proud to represent the area here in Parliament. Now, of course, where there is industry, there are people. Whatever our political differences, I recognise it as the people that are at the heart of the ATUC's aims and objectives, and it is out of a desire to change for the better for these people. We may disagree on how to get there, but I think that we can agree across partisan divides. We all seek such goals in good faith. Then it opens the door to an honest and civil discussion that elements of politics have been lacking in recent years. So, in conclusion, Presiding Officer, being existing for 150 years is an achievement for just about any organisation, one worthy of congratulation. I note that the ATUC has been a part of many successes in happening throughout its history. While there are differences in opinion, I will do my best to engage in that good faith to find solutions that benefit all those that we represent. Thank you very much, Mr Mason. I call Jackie Baillie to be followed by Liam Kerr, who will be the last speaker in the open debate. Ms Baillie, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and let me join with others in congratulating Lewis MacDonald on securing debating time to celebrate Aberdeen trades council on their 150th anniversary. I am pleased to wear their badge in the chamber this evening to help with those celebrations, because, of course, it marks years of dedication and commitment to ensuring the highest possible standards in workers' rights and working conditions across Aberdeen and the north-east. The impact that they have had on the wider trade union movement and the continued success that I know they will have for years to come is a real testimony to those who have been a part of it at all levels over the years, and I wish them every luck for the future. There are many who have made a contribution to the trades council and the trade union movement in Aberdeen and the north-east, and I have to confess far too many to name although I thought that Lewis made a sterling job of doing so, but let me just single out one. He was an Aberdeenian, one-time secretary of the Aberdeen trades council, who took the trade union message out from Aberdeen to all of Scotland, and that was Jimmy Milne, general secretary of the STUC. He made his mark in Aberdeen by working for safer conditions for fishing trawler crews, but his interests were much wider than that. I well remember him as the founder of Treesbank, along with Glasgow trades council. That was an educational facility, I think in Kilmarnock, if I'm right, for trade unionists, which was the forerunner of its time, because it believed passionately in educating trade unionists to take the argument forward. I'm sure that many trade unionists have many happy memories of Treesbank, but when the Aberdeen trades council was set up in 1868, things were a little different, and I think that Stuart Stevenson has touched on that, but workers had few rights, their conditions were frankly appalling, women were confined to roles attached to their gender, and any hope of genuine representation for the working class in the world of politics was little more than a pipe dream. Then again, Presiding Officer, this is hardly surprising, given the fact that the Labour Party had not yet been founded. Of course, founded by the trade unions, it was undeniably the Labour Party, along with organisations such as Aberdeen trades council, that paved the way for workers' rights, transforming their conditions and giving working class women in particular the voice that they desperately needed. There are now some 14 trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party who are representing a wide variety of workers from more traditional industries, such as steel and mining, represented by community and the national union of mine workers, to manufacturing, covered by the GMBN Unite, and workers in retail, given a voice by Azdo. Over the last decades, those industries have been faced with a number of challenges. It was a strong and united trade union and Labour movement that stood shoulder to shoulder with the striking miners during the 1980s. It is Labour today that is fighting against exploitative zero-hours contracts alongside our colleagues in trade unions that many workers have no choice but to work under, giving them a complete lack of financial stability or job security. The world of work is changing. Workers and their pattern of work is changing. Unions are making that change too. They need to deal with more uncertainty in the workplace, the rise of the gig economy, deindustrialisation and trade unions and trade councils have a huge role to play. Many moons ago, when I was slightly younger than I am now, I used to be a member of Strathkelven district trade council. Now I am pleased to go along and support Western Bartonshire trade council when they invite me. It is that partnership of trade unions and their local communities that is so powerful.  I look forward to their future over the next 150 years but, indeed, strengthen trades councils across Scotland. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms Bailey. I call Liam Kerr. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Like others, I would like to congratulate Lewis MacDonald on securing this debate today. It is an important topic because, as Jackie Baillie has just reminded us, it is vital to recognise the progress that has been made in the century and a half that has passed since the formation of the Aberdeen trades union council both because of the council and, as Jackie Baillie says, the wider union movement. Now, the context in which the ATUC was founded was, of course, very different. The legal status of trade unions in the United Kingdom had only been established the year before by a royal commission on trade unions, which reported that their establishment was to the advantage of both employers and employees. Interestingly, that same year, 1867, was also the year that Dundee trades union council had its first recorded meeting. The 10-week great strike of 1868 by Aberdeen stone masons led to hardship and poverty for many of Aberdeen's residents, but it also led to the coming together of 13 societies and branches of masons and prompted the formal establishment of the council, principally by the Aberdeen branches of the associated carpenters and joiners of Scotland and the operative masons and granite workers union. 1868 was also the year that the trade union congress was established. It was not until 1871 that unions were formally legalised by the trade unions act. Tom Mason brought up Disraeli, who in 1875 improved the position of unions considerably when he introduced the conspiracy and protection of property act, which allowed peaceful picketing. And in 1878, the employers and workmen act, which enabled workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke employment contracts. The north-east looked very different in those days, too. The railway had reached Aberdeen some 18 years earlier, and in fact it was only a few months before the ATUC's formation in November 1867 that Aberdeen joint station opened. Shipbuilding boomed between the 1850s and 70s, and granite continued to be produced. A network of sewers was put into Aberdeen shortly before. All of that required labour, and labour required a voice. The ATUC aimed to provide that voice as reflected by the simple statement in its objects, the advancement and protection of the rights of labour and the wellbeing of the working classes generally. So for the next 150 years, the ATUC, a body made up of affiliated trade union branches and organisations in Aberdeen and Shire, would promote the interests of those affiliated organisations and seek united action, particularly to improve the economic and social conditions of working people. The changing times were reflected in its location until 1956. The ATUC spent most of its history in the trades hall in Belmont Street. Thereafter, it relocated to the Adelphi off Union Street, where perhaps very differently to 150 years ago, they are now bordered by a maritime museum, an outstanding Hungarian goulash restaurant, a letting agent, a mural celebrating women's suffrage and the asylum graphic novel store. And my caseworker tells me that the hall is a social as well as a union hub, with him having participated in live-action role-playing games and DJing at a wedding there. And as Stuart Stevenson says, the ATUC remains as relevant today as all those years ago. For example, playing a key role initially in the formation of the Scottish Trades Union Congress in 1897, providing council officers as elected presidents of that organisation, and laterally in 1973, when a Grampian Federation of Trades Council was established to represent trades across the Murray and Banff and Bucking areas. And also through a full and focused annual calendar of events, including since 1890, the May Day Rally, since 1998, the Workers Memorial Day, and since 2005, as Lewis MacDonald said, the St Andrews Day, anti-racism, anti-fascism march. The ATUC has over 150 years become a powerful force in the north-east. Disraeli memorably said that power has only one duty, to secure the social welfare of the people. I have little doubts that the ATUC will spend the next 150 years as it has the previous, using its power to do exactly that. Thank you very much, Mr Kerr. I now call on Keith Brown to close with the Government, Cabinet Secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you also to Lewis MacDonald for bringing his debate to the Scottish Parliament. And like others, I'd like to congratulate the members of Aberdeen Trade Union Council past and present on reaching their 150th anniversary. When the council was established in 1868, its mission, as we've just heard, was the emancipation of the working classes. It has been mentioned of Disraeli and others, but it strikes me that it's around 20 years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, and perhaps some of the language owes something to Marx's work as well. Spanning three centuries, the council has worked continuously to represent workers, to construct the challenge working conditions and practices, and to create the conditions for cultural and societal change. As the years have passed, trade unions, including those that are affiliated to Aberdeen Trade Union Council, have been instrumental in making our workplaces safer, fairer and more democratic. That is a fact that the Scottish Government recognises and is extremely grateful for. Trade unions have and will continue to play a vital role in improving our country's health and safety records. Evidence shows that accident rates are lower where employees feel genuinely they have a say in health and safety matters compared with workplaces where employees do not get involved. As a former shop steward for a number of years, I realised some of the points that were made previously that the role of shop stewards in trade unions now, difficult though it still is, bears no relation to the difficulties that people had to face 150 years ago and genuinely trying to represent the interests of their members, not least in terms of health and safety. While Scotland's health and safety record is now amongst the best in Europe, I am sure that the chamber will agree that one workplace fatality is one too many, and International Workers Memorial Day, which takes place on 28 April, as you have heard, allows us to remember all those who have lost their lives or their livelihoods because of unsafe workplaces or practices. This year, of course, marks the 30th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster. The North Sea Oil Platform, which was destroyed by an explosion caused by a gas leak, is a very poignant example that has significantly affected Aberdeen. On 6 July 1988, 165 offshore workers and two seafarers lost their lives. Immediately after the disaster, all workers and union activists campaigned for safety improvements. The offshore industry liaison committee was set up and is now part of the RMT trade union with around 2,500 members. Beyond health and safety, our trade unions must be credited for giving workers an effective voice, supporting equality groups and increasing productivity and innovation in workplaces. For those reasons, the Scottish Government believes that every worker should have the right to have an effective voice in the workplace and to union representation. The impact of trade union representation is evident in the Office of National Statistics, which shows levels of industrial dispute in Scotland between 2007 and 2016, has decreased by 71 per cent. Eleven days per thousand employees were lost due to industrial disputes in Scotland. That compares with 38 when this Government came to power. That reflects, in part, our commitment to effective industrial relations in Scotland. The Scottish Government is committed to protecting and enhancing industrial relations in Scotland, and that is demonstrated through a relationship with the Scottish Trade Union's Congress, whom we see as a social and economic partner. At the opening of the STUC annual congress yesterday, the First Minister announced that we are maintaining funding of more than £2 million a year for Scottish union learning, to promote workplace learning, allowing members to access learning and training opportunities at a time that suits their needs. They are also funding a third year of the trade union fair work and modernisation fund, which seeks to promote better working practices and to offset the burden of the trade union act. In 2018-19, the funding will focus on embedding fair work in sectors where precarious work is prevalent. It is clear that the efforts of the trade union movement in Scotland have contributed to significant progress on a number of fronts, however, challenges remain. The use of exploitative zero hours contracts and the increase in precarious work and the fact that nearly one in five workers in Scotland still are paid below the real living wage, the fact that employment law, including powers over industrial relations, is currently reserved to the UK Government. I hope that all within the chamber this evening will show their appreciation for the Aberdeen trade union council and the wider trade union movement through supporting the devolution of employment law. In the meantime, we have to build on the significant progress that we are making to deliver greater fairness in the workplace. This year, we will work with Scottish Government partners, including the STUC and members of the Parliament, to develop and publish fair work action plan. We also have a statement in relation to the BiFab takeover. I think that there is a direct line between the work that people involved in the Aberdeen trade union's congress were undertaking later part of the 19th century with the partnership that today saw that tremendous outcome. The fairer work action plan will set out how the Scottish Government will utilise all its strategic levers to promote fairer working practices, realise greater inclusive growth. Jackie Baillie quite rightly mentions and proudly mentions the involvement of the Labour Party and the links between the Labour Party and trade unions. I think that it is only fair to say that members of all political parties have played their part within trade unions and tried to affect change to their improvement and to the improvement of the workers that they represent. In June, we will announce our new national performance framework, the measures and targets that we use in assessing how successful we are as a country, and fair work will be adopted as one of our high-level aims. One of the new indicators that we use will be the level of collective bargaining in the economy. That is a significant and progressive development that recognises that collective bargaining is a sign of a healthy and a successful country. The UK Government, on the other hand, is determined to regress industrial relations. The trade union bill, which the Scottish Government opposed and would like to see repealed, is a direct attempt to reduce the influence of trade unions. The Scottish Government and the STUC have worked together to combat the burden placed on public sector employers by the trade union act, which makes a legal requirement to publish information on facility time. Together, we have created a reporting template designed to minimise the reporting burden on the public sector. Crucially, it will set out the value that facility time brings to organisations, including dispute prevention, and improving employee wellbeing. To conclude, I would like to again congratulate the ATUC on the valuable contribution that they have made to industrial relations in Scotland, and, in particular, to improving the standard of living for so many workers and their families in the north-east. Thank you. That concludes the debate, and I close this meeting.


Hey, this is Brett, and this 2016 Ford Mustang GT Premium is stock number 13843Z. I am here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, you're new and use sports car headquarters this 2016 Ford Mustang GT Premium has the 5-liter V8 Coyote engine, puts out 435 horsepower. This one's paired up with the 6-speed manual transmission. This car has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this car is 100% ready to go. I'm going to go all the way around in this video inside show you all the options started up take a look under the hood just to give you the most accurate representation that I can of the car. Shadow black clear coat is the color I shoot all my videos in 4K and if you like the video you can subscribe to my YouTube channel which is youtube.com slash summit auto click the bell notifications to get updates on the videos I do each and every day as well as having access to one of the largest catalogs of vehicle and sports car walkarounds in particular on YouTube. That's pretty awesome 8,000 videos and counting this one comes with the really nice painted and polished aluminum wheels. 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to this vehicle on our website in the lower left and a link to one of our latest youtube videos in the lower right click those checks out we're super excited to help you with this ultra clean 2016 forward Mustang gt premium and black shadow black clear code thanks again for checking out the video remember to like subscribe and share on the youtube channel i really appreciate it thanks again


Russia plans to produce 1,300 Shahid UAVs by year-end. Russia plans to produce 1,300 Shahids by the end of 2023. Vadim Skibitsky, a representative of the main intelligence directorate at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said this in an interview with RBC Ukraine. According to him, Russia has started working on setting up a powerful production of unmanned aerial vehicles on its territory. We are working to find out where exactly UAVs are manufactured since more than one company is involved in the production of drones and spare parts for them and what the actual production capacity is, he said. Skibitsky noted that preliminary military intelligence data indicate that Russia planned to manufacture 1,300 units of the so-called Guarantee Drone in the second half of this year. Russians can use components of both foreign and domestic production. At the same time, in fact, they are not capable of producing such a number of UAVs today, he said. According to him, following the latest attacks by Shahid drones, military intelligence discovered components in them that indicate that the final stage of the assembling of these UAVs is already taking place in Russia. That is evidenced, in particular, by the increase in the number of Russian parts in the drones. In addition, according to information available to us, the aggressor plans to expand the production of Shahid on the territory of the Russian Federation. Also, it was announced at one of the Russian Defense Industry Exhibitions that Moscow wants to master nearly 60 UAVs of various modifications by 2030, he said.


Entrepreneurship is problem-solving, right, and when you're diverse and inclusive with your entrepreneurial community, you start solving problems that you didn't even know existed. That is where your innovation lies and that is actually where we find the influence within the country. With women and communities on the margins, they must be in the room. They must be a part of answering what is needed and what the future looks like. The Walton Family Foundation is focused on supporting initiatives that foster a culture of entrepreneurship and office outcomes. We know that entrepreneurs at Vibrancy, they create jobs and they bring innovative ideas and concepts to the region. When you look at what entrepreneurs are and let's go at small business owners, that is the lifeblood of America. So that is where you're going to find your job creation. We want to create a thriving ecosystem, a thriving economy, which means that we need more successful small businesses. Essentially, what we're trying to create here at Venture Noire is an ecosystem for success. Venture Noire is focused on the co-creation of innovation and partnership to allow them to invest in those innovative solutions led by female founders and founders of color. So the station is a community space for adolescents, a space where they can come in and meet people who are all interested in creating something, all interested in art, all interested in music, interested in entrepreneurship, and interested in making a difference in their community. I get the question a lot like, what do we do at the Innovation Club? At our core, we provide access. The focus of the work is to build impassioned entrepreneurs and impassioned makers. No matter your demographic makeup, your geographic location, your background, your experience, your connections, we want to provide access to the tools, skills, resources necessary for you to be successful. It can happen. It's possible. I believe that a different future is possible and I have a role as agency in creating a new future. Starting a business is incredibly hard for a multitude of reasons. I think there's inherent fear and I think there's a lot of just self-doubt. Less than 20% of the venture capital is directed at the heartland. In addition to these geographic disparities, less than 10% of all capital is invested in female and other underrepresented founders. There is a fear factor there that I'm going to fail if I try or there's not enough resources to support me as a minority or a woman. Having community that has your back is really important. There are a lot of shared resources that can come by way of mentorship and having the right conversation with the right person who has a little bit more knowledge or access or a network that can amplify what you're doing. When you look at a place like Northwest Arkansas, it is an institution of success. Real success comes from your 100-year plan and thinking about the future and that is the job of an entrepreneur is to think about a world that does not exist. We're looking to shape the region and lead the country and the world for years and decades and generations to come. Good afternoon and a warm welcome to all who are joining us today in this session of investing in entrepreneurial ecosystems. In this session, we are going to learn about how philanthropy can play a role in fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems. As you may already be aware, entrepreneurship is key for any economy. Entrepreneurs and startups add vibrancy to communities. They create jobs. They are contributors to innovation because they bring new ideas and concepts to the table. When we think about philanthropic funding, entrepreneurship does not immediately come to mind. A little introduction about myself. I am Elin Lai. I'm a senior program officer overseeing economic development initiatives at the Watson Family Foundation. At the Foundation, we tackle social and environmental problems with a long-term approach to create access to opportunity for people and communities. The program area I'm working on focuses on Northwest Arkansas. And my goal is to build vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, as part of advancing the region's economic and cultural vibrancy. Fostering entrepreneurship, I believe, is really important during these times, as the world continues to battle the devastation that's caused by the pandemic. With me today, I'm really pleased to have a distinguished panel of leaders from the entrepreneurs of organizations that I've worked with to advance entrepreneurship. Let me get started by getting them to introduce themselves and the organizations they are representing. Next, with the ladies. Marta, why don't you start us off? Hello, Elin. Thank you for asking me to be on this today. I'm excited to talk about Kiva Loans for Entrepreneurs, as we like to say they are loans that change lives. So I'm based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and my official title is the Capital Access Manager for the Northwest Arkansas Kiva Hub. Kiva itself is an international nonprofit, crowd-funded online lender, and it brings over 1.9 million lenders onto a fabulous platform to make loans to entrepreneurs throughout the world. Kiva US is a program of Kiva that came out a little bit later after Kiva was founded in 2005. And so our Kiva loans in the US are just for small business owners. And so my personal background is as a public school educator and as a business and banking attorney. And then I came into the Kiva role when I went to work for the Startup Junkie Foundation in Fayetteville, Arkansas. So all our services are provided free of charge to the Northwest Arkansas home region. And I assist borrowers with the Kiva application process. So anyone can apply for a Kiva loan, but we have data that shows they are typically much less likely to drop off and give up, and they are more successful when they have someone who has some experience with the online application and gathering documents and things like that. The main focus of Kiva is that the loans are to improve the lives of those who have been historically and systematically discriminated against in the lending industry in the United States of America. So approximately 75% to 80% of all Kiva loans go to women. Our target service is to serve not only women, but minorities, those with felony background records, the LBGTQIA community, veterans, persons with personal disabilities, and those who, due to a very low income status, have been historically disadvantaged in the lending arena. Thanks very much, Marta. I'm a fan of Kiva. And I think Kiva, it's great at facilitating access to capital for entrepreneurs. Now, how about you, Janem? Great, thanks, Elan. So my name's Janem Arcann. I'm the managing director of Endeavor, Northwest Arkansas, and Tulsa. We support entrepreneurs all around the world because we fundamentally believe that there are people who can change their economies and transform their countries and regions, but they just don't have the same access to mentorship, to inspiration, to capital, to structural support. So I work with companies in Northwest Arkansas and Tulsa, but my colleagues all around the world work in 40 markets, so everything from Nigeria to Egypt to Brazil, and we support entrepreneurship. We do that through access to capital. So Endeavor has a venture fund. Fund three is $140 million, where we have fund four being raised in Q1 of next year. We do that through access to mentorship, and that's both peer-to-peer mentorship, so a fantastic gaming company in Cairo can talk about their problem scaling and the issues that they're having with a fantastic gaming company out of Detroit. And we do that through access to, and so we sort of think about that as talent, right? Sort of mentorship and talent. So access to mentorship, peer-to-peer, and sort of senior leadership, helping you guide your business the way they may not have had access to guide their business. And then talent all around, how do you become a better leader? How do you hire the right people? How do you think about the key change makers in your own company? So we do that across 40 markets, and we do that because we believe that entrepreneurship and people who wanna disrupt and change our world live everywhere, but they don't all have access to the same resources.  So I grew up in finance. I'm originally from Turkey and I lived in New York and moved to Northwest Arkansas about eight years ago. And I saw something in this region that I think anybody who comes here will see, which is that there's so much potential to make a difference for people that live here and wanna change the world in biking or change the world in entrepreneurship or in restaurants or in education. There's just opportunity here a lot from the Support of the Walton Family Foundation. But I moved here about eight years ago and I'm so excited to be part of this community. That's wonderful, Jinem. I think Endeavor is doing really important work because like a lot of the, there's a lot of potential in this heartland, but then a lot of the capital and even the mentors are kind of like concentrated on the coast. And so Endeavor is bringing this and making it accessible for the entrepreneurs that's not in the coast, not at the coast. That's wonderful. Kenan, how about you? Hey, how you doing? Thanks for having us, Yulin. I appreciate this and excited to be on with two amazing leaders that we have going on today. So I'm Kenan Beasley. I'm the founder of Venture Noir. We're a national nonprofit focused simply put on improving black quality of life through entrepreneurship. We're based in Bentonville. I think if I say it in a less fancy way, we're about job creation, right? So when we look at a lot of the issues that have been plaguing the black community and causing a lot of the disadvantages that have been happening today is through the great flight of what's happened with fleeing jobs. And so our mission has been really rooted in how do we use entrepreneurship as a way of creating sustainable jobs and what is that next industrial revolution that can positively impact the black community? Just by background for me, I am a serial entrepreneur but I started as a corporate guy coming out of West Point. I ended up at Procter & Gamble. That's how I fell in love with Arkansas being on the amazing Walmart team down there but then went on to be a vice president at L'Oreal before starting my own entrepreneurial endeavors. I came off two exits and really felt extremely isolated in my entrepreneurial journey. And I felt that there was a desire to create what is the next Silicon Valley and to create that kind of robust ecosystem for entrepreneurs of color. In order to do that, we had to come to a region where one, there was incredible talent but incredible resources and I think the willingness from a philanthropic community looking to solve something that has been a tremendous issue that's plagued this country for quite a while. That led us to Bentville and talking with amazing leaders like Elon. So happy to be here and excited to learn from everyone but contribute everything I can. It's great to have you, Kenan. You might find Kenan familiar because he was featured in the video that was played prior to the discussion. So I'm gonna get the discussion going and I'm gonna start off with a very simple question. I'm sure you all are doing what you're doing right now because you believe it's important. So why do you think that entrepreneurship is important? I'm gonna switch it around and ask Kenan to start us off. You know, I think it's important because when I really look at the state of the country and just thinking overall in the US and where we are economically, we have a couple of things that are hurting us and this was sped up through obviously the pandemic and it is what is the future of workforce? We're at a point now where industries have been disrupted. We've seen a lot of jobs have left the country and I think we have an extremely populated talent pool that is being underutilized. And I think entrepreneurship is naturally an environment and the type of people that look to disrupt but also to reimagine what can be possible and what exists. And if I think about America being a leader economically in the world, we have to look at what is one of our greatest assets and one of our greatest resources. And that has been black influence and creativity. We've seen that through music, we've seen that through art, we've seen that through invention, we've seen that through a number of industries and right now we're still sitting with 9.7% unemployment rate. So I'm looking at entrepreneurship to solve and close that gap. I think there's about three million jobs that we can create quickly that can positively impact both the country and the black community as a whole. Yeah, I think that's a great point. What about Eugene then, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, Keenan first of all, I think your comments around especially our underserved community is how the pandemic has impacted them and the need for entrepreneurship is so spot on and I love that you made that point but entrepreneurship is global. So when I think about what's gonna change our world and not just our communities or our towns, it's global impact in healthcare, it's global impact in how we think about our homes, right? We literally shifted as an entire, the entire globe shifted the way we worked in three months back in March of 2020. And the way we were able to do that is through entrepreneurship, through people developing programs for us to be able to work from homes through the internet of things, through changing the way we think about commuting and how that applies to our own sense of wellbeing and health. So everything we do is impacted by entrepreneurship and the disruption that entrepreneurs create. And I think without that, without that global impact, we're gonna all suffer and that's just a really broad way of thinking about it. I'm bringing it home, the income inequality in the United States certainly has grown tremendously and I think one way to battle that is through entrepreneurship, to create not just the generation of entrepreneurs today, but to create a generation of entrepreneurs who wanna give back. So that's really a key pillar of endeavor is to help support entrepreneurs who recognize the impact that they have and then wanna reinvest that, not just in terms of capital, but also in terms of time and mentorship and in terms of serving as inspiration. So creating that virtual cycle, entrepreneurship can do that. And so we wanna support, we believe in entrepreneurship because it's not just supporting jobs today, but jobs tomorrow. That's a wonderful way of putting it, Jinem. I do also think that entrepreneurs play an important role in a community because they are creative. And like in times of like during the pandemic, I know of two entrepreneurs who are generating like great ideas and putting them into action to help with the effects of the pandemic. And so like we have one entrepreneur that's coming up with like grocery shopping stores because people are not going into grocery store to do their shopping. And then we have another one that's coming up with another idea on helping electronic platform for restaurants and storefronts to have their businesses online and selling gift cards just so to sustain themselves. So entrepreneurs can't, it's not only thinking about for-profit ideas, but sometimes they can be really creative and nonprofit ideas to help with the community. Now, Maka, how about you? What are your thoughts on entrepreneurship? Well, with the Kiva program specifically, we start with even allowing disadvantaged borrowers to have the dream of having a business. It is a true grassroots. Kiva loans are only a thousand to $15,000. And I meet with people who have never known someone in their family or on their street or in their section of town that owned their own business. And so they may have an idea or something they're good at that they want to do, but they need just that small piece of capital, that small loan to buy a piece of equipment or take that idea and build a website because they're not technologically savvy. They need just that seed funding to take what's truly, with many of my Kiva borrowers, a dream, a complete dream. They, as we know historically in the United States, people of color, women, people with felony backgrounds have been denied access, not only to employment industries, but just to the idea of ownership. And those ideas have been dashed or they haven't seen someone. So for me, the Kiva loans truly change not only the life of that individual and give them that confidence and ability to see themselves as a business owner, but then their children, their nieces, their nephews, their neighbors, the people on their street see someone who looks like them or who has their background barriers and challenges own a business. And that's by with Kiva hubs, unless you get into the Kiva hubs in Los Angeles or New York or in the Chicago area, you're not gonna see massive amounts of loans. You might have, Kiva only requires a hub to exist if it does 10 loans a year. But what we talk about is if 10 people in a Hispanic community, in a black community, 10 people or five of those 10 who have old felony records for minor drug convictions that they wouldn't have even had a felony if they'd had a decent lawyer. When people see them start a business, the impact of those 10 people a year or 20 people a year doing that in a community, the word spreads. And it helps truly a community to see that business ownership and entrepreneurship is for everyone. It's not just a dream if you're poor. It's not just a dream if you're black.  It's something that can truly happen and make a community completely open to all for entrepreneurship. And it is a very small scale.  I'm like, let me tell you some stories about what I've done for people helping them to get access to a $3,000 loan. Let me tell you, those are real stories and they're extremely impactful. Yeah, that's a great point and it leads us to the next question, right? Which is, I think there is like a spectrum of entrepreneurship. And, you know, according to this article from Heartland Forward, they have categorized entrepreneurship into two broad types. One is what is called the knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship. And these are young firms that offer more professional, technical, scientific type of offerings. And they have a higher propensity to go after non-local markets. And then there is this main street entrepreneurship which are mostly in the service sector and sometimes they are family-based and they tend to target local markets. And the article states that regardless of which type of entrepreneurship, they are important for any ecosystem and they have data that shows that if there are a higher young firm share of employment in that particular region, which means that any firms that are five years younger, they are measuring their employment in this type of firms. If they are higher, it shows that the regional economic growth is faster. So they have data showing that. So regardless of any type of entrepreneurship, both are important, right? So even if it's, I know the media often highlights the unicorn type of startups and knowledge-intensive, but still the main street entrepreneurship, it's also key to any economic growth. So, and I would like to learn about your work if you do focus on like a particular type of entrepreneurship. Is there one particular type that you are focused on fostering? And if so, is there a unique approach to fostering that type of entrepreneurship? Or you might be focused on both, but then you might have unique approaches to fostering each type of entrepreneurship. So Junem, maybe we start with Endeavor. Yeah, and I love that you say because we believe that there's a place for both to, specifically Endeavor focuses on that scaling company as opposed to a main street company. And we do that because as a nonprofit, resources are limited and so we need, when we think about our mission, it's to support high growth entrepreneurs. So, we've done maps and Endeavor maps and I'm happy to share with any of the viewers today if they ask during the chat and the chat box, but we've done mappings of how companies grow over time and how they impact the development, economic development in their regions. So, when you look at a company's growth cycle, it's not just that they're growing and then the employees and the board of directors and the C-suite are growing and scaling, it's that those people, as people leave that organization and start their own businesses, the impact that can have that where companies can serve as inspiration or where companies can serve as investors in spin-out companies or spin-off companies. So we really think that that's where we can be supportive where we have the most expertise and those are the kinds of companies we support. I was pulling up just as you were saying, Asilin, but we look at Endeavor Catalyst, which is Endeavor's Venture Fund and I'd mentioned we are about to finish the investment round of fund three and we'll be launching fund for next year in January. When we look at the number of billion dollar value companies, these are, none of those companies are based in San Francisco or New York. They're based all around the world from Flutterwave in Nigeria to Kavok in Mexico and hopefully soon, very soon, a Northwest Arkansas company. So, we think that there's ways to support entrepreneurship within the same bucket of sort of fast growth, having a tech-enabled sort of focus in any vertical. So you could be in food and beverage or you could be in enterprise SaaS or you could be in healthcare, but really having that is where we think our sweet spot is and where we think we can have the most impact as an organization. But again, that's not to say that the work that Martha's doing with Kiva isn't incredibly valuable and necessary and specifically the work that Venture Noir is doing to support underserved founders who've had very little access to any of that capital or support. So that's really where we focus our energy and we think we have the most impact and I'm happy to share some of our reports on that. That's awesome. And so is there any specific needs of these companies that you're looking to address? Do they usually come to you for capital? Do they come to you for networks? Could you elaborate on that? Yeah, the capital question is really interesting because what we find is that entrepreneurs and some of our markets can access capital. It's just very unfavorable terms. And what happens is it misaligns the incentives between the founder and the capital provider because they're not keeping enough of their company so that any future growth is basically out of their hands, keeping enough of their equity or keeping enough of their decision-making power. So we like to say that Endeavor helps bring smart capital and not just because of our own fund but really because of our access to partners who we think are fantastic capital providers who really have a long-term vision for how our company should grow. So really thinking about how much their equity, how much equity they're providing, how much of the company they should own and why their interests are aligned. So capital is a big part of it but I'll tell you, Elin, the biggest aspect of our support comes from very radical feedback. We've had companies come to us and say, I had an option to exit and I talked to three or four Endeavor mentors and they all told me to stick in there to push forward because we were on the precipice of something big. And that decision changed the lives of not just the founder but all the employees and really the town and the region that they were in across the world. So it's peer-to-peer radical feedback and really sort of senior leadership radical feedback because so many founders we find get advice from their cousin or best friend or parent or somebody who's their neighbor and all that advice is sort of, there's a lot of similar think. There's a lot of exogenous forces that influence those founders. So there's not a lot of ways for them to creatively talk to others about their problems who don't have a vested interest in them. Their board obviously has a certain point of view, their employees have a point of view, their neighbors and family members have a point of view. So we're able to give them really external uninterested or disinterested advice meaning the people providing this advice are purely doing it out of their belief in entrepreneurship and not because they have any stake in the success of the company. So they really just wanna give their honest radical demand-driven feedback. So that's really what we focus on. Those two are the biggest part of I think where we have impact with these kinds of companies. Yeah, that's a great point because I've heard from many entrepreneurs how lonely being an entrepreneur could be. And because they are the owner and there isn't anyone telling them what to do, right? So it's great to have endeavor. We have with a network of fellow entrepreneurs who can share their expertise. Now, Keenan, let's move to you. What does venture nor do like, is there any particular type of entrepreneurship you're focused on? Yeah, I think for us, I think the beauty of it is I don't have to focus on the type of entrepreneur rather than the demographic and focus on underserved and black entrepreneurs. You know, I think when you have a nonprofit like venture nor and understanding that you're going towards economic impact, it is also with a social good cause, right? In a layer that is first and foremost. So I don't approach entrepreneurship as a purely capitalist. I have to approach it in terms of how do we impact positively the black communities that I'm focused on serving through this vehicle. In order to do that, I think what we're looking at is how do we work with corporate partners to scale that impact, right? And I think we've seen a lot of commitments over the last couple of years, particularly since the incidents that happened with George Floyd. We've seen a lot of commitments from the venture capital community. A lot of these have fallen short, right? We're still seeing that the wealth gap is wider than ever today.  So these vehicles that are traditional that we're seeing today have not been effective, right? And I think venture nor's challenge right now is how do we use these known markets, right? These known vehicles to actually advance and accelerate. I'll give you a perfect example of that. Coming out of our cohorts right now, we have about 25 entrepreneurs that are coming out of our cohort, industry agnostic. The main work for us was not just the training on how to take an entrepreneur from idea to first dollar, first dollar to first million, but also now like what is at the end of that rainbow, right, of the cohort? What's the pot of gold and how do we measure that impact? How many jobs are created? How much revenue is generated? It can't purely be about how much money we raise them because that doesn't lead necessarily to improving quality of life for the black community. I have to be a little bit more specific in how we do that. So if I take an entrepreneur that has a beauty business that goes through our cohort, how can I get him shelf placement or her shelf placement at Walmart, right? Or at Sam's, what does that look like? Because that now is revenue. That revenue means there are jobs that are created to scale that business. That means we've positively changed that community of where that business is based. So our approach is very much both short-term and long-term of how we stay with entrepreneurs through the life cycle of them and not purely through investment, but also through research support and ecosystem development. That's great. So you're kind of facilitating market access for your entrepreneurs as well, which is an important thing for them to sustain themselves. Would you say they're in the cohort of entrepreneurs you're helping? Would they be the ones that are mainstream entrepreneurs or are you targeting the ones that have a higher propensity to scale? Yeah, I think both groups have the higher propensity to scale. I think when you actually dig down into the black communities, they're actually not sure. The first layer that you have to overcome is actually the confidence barrier. Because a lot of the entrepreneurs are doing things because they've been undervalued or out of just actual survival. So you sometimes don't know where they actually are until you complete an eight-week process, at which point then you're selecting what capital sources is right for them. If they are fast, high, super high growth, we connect them with groups like Endeavor and funds that are available in the ecosystem. That makes sense. But many are actually doing service-based businesses like my first company, where they're going to create 48 jobs and over 10 million in revenue, but they'll never be venture-backed. And those are also great entrepreneurs because that accomplishes our mission. So we have to go through the process to understand that. I'll say in our first two cohorts, it was probably about 60-40, 60% being Main Street. Yeah, and that's really a good point because they could start off thinking they are just targeting at the local markets. But after going through that programming, the ambition may grow, and they might have the propensity to become something that could scale. Correct. Well, thank you, Kenan. How about you, Mato? What do you think? Well, yeah.  You know, typically, you talk a lot about mom and pop businesses. The Main Street term gives me a chill a little bit because I think we kind of need to get rid of that term. Because when I think of Main Street, I think of middle-aged white men with brick-and-mortar businesses.  They're out in rural areas making businesses out of their kitchens. And so I like to talk a lot about community businesses because I also want my entrepreneurs to feel that they can start this very small business in their kitchen, in their garage, with their kids at their brother's garage, and they can grow it in their community. And I want them to do that. I don't want them in the middle of downtown on Main Street where their community doesn't go very much and doesn't see them. And so I work a lot with them just about how helping them to see. I love, love, love when they see and we share things from venture noir and fabulous opportunities that happen because everybody's got to have that higher level dream, right?  We need that image. We need to see those scaling companies. But I work with people. I will tell you one of the things that Kiva really, really likes to see, it's not an absolute requirement, but we really want, is for them to have at least a business checking account, even if it's a DBA account or it's an account set up with their LLC. And I work with entrepreneurs who when I say we need to set up a bank account, I can see their face. They have had terrible experiences. I have to build a level of trust for them to say, I got overdrawn checking accounts at two banks in this town. And so we start and I'm like, tell me which banks. I know loan officers there. I know people. I get them to build a trust and understand that a lot of times if we can just go in and take care of that old account or if I can find them another bank that won't look that up and doesn't care that they have those. And I get them appointments with people I know.  She's there these hours, these days. She knows you're coming and she's my friend and she's going to treat you with respect and help you open this account. Sometimes it takes them a month to save up that hundred bucks to do it. But it's building that experience in the business arena to often people. I am a sixth generation small business owner. My family's been in Northwest Arkansas since 1852 and they've all owned on small businesses, mostly because they can't get along with other people. So they had to start their own businesses. So that's where I come from. So I have to help them understand that history. They don't have that. Their mom worked at a department store. Their dad drove a truck for a trucking company. They've never seen that model. So for what I do, I really start with the base education, understanding what their experience is first and then asking them, can I help you understand the ladders we need to go up? And that's what we do with Keeble. We build a capital ladder. The first thing is getting some sort of documentation. The business exists and then a bank account. And I can tell you, I see changes in their faces. I see changes in how they hold themselves. They begin to see themselves as not somebody just selling something, getting some money as a business owner.  Anytime, whether we call it a community business or a main street business or a venture business, they have to see themselves as that. And so working with these very early stage entrepreneurs, and I like to educate them about the word entrepreneur and make them own that and feel it. And so some of these very basic things that people are like, well, sure everybody does that. If no one in your family or at your school or in your community has taught you that, you have to be able to see that vision. And it can be those simple steps. So a lot of times with my Keeble borrowers, that's where we may begin. And I have Keeble borrowers who've had business for two or three years and they're a brick and mortar and they want the Keeble loan because it's a 0% interest. It's a great promotion and it's a good deal for their business because they're smart business people and they care about supporting other business owners, people of color, women-owned businesses, businesses that are owned by gay and lesbian persons. So it's all different types. There is no one type of Keeble borrower. Yeah, I love this. I mean, I think the takeaways from this talk, that this conversation that we are having is that there is different types of entrepreneurs and they have different needs, but you don't want to pigeonhole yourself into just being a main street entrepreneur because I think everybody has the potential. They just need the right resources to scale. Now, as you talk about all this amazing work that you all are doing to foster entrepreneurship, how would you know if you have made a difference? And how do you know if you have succeed in your work? Is there any one particular impact story that you can share that you have experienced or one that you are particularly proud of? So maybe Matta, let's start with you. Sure. One that has just always impacted me and made me feel really proud of the Keeble program is, and with Keeble we only use towns and first names. We had a borrower named Shane. He identifies as a Hispanic U.S. citizen and he worked for a large national franchise company and he had worked as an employee for them and drove one of their trucks and they had a special promotion, which that's great. Normally the buy-in for that franchise and to get your truck is $30,000. They thankfully finally realized that his business was based in Springdale, Arkansas, which is now 36% Hispanic and they had never had any person of color ever or females ever own one of their franchises. So they offered him a special deal, $10,000. If he could come up with $10,000, he could buy his truck and his franchise. Unfortunately, he wasted about two weeks going to banks because of his credit score, which is usually the biggest barrier as a former banker I will tell you to people even getting to fill out an application. Most banks in our area want at least a 750 credit score. They really want a 700. So by the time he got to me we only had five weeks left and so we worked up his application. I got him connected to an accountant who set up an LLC very quickly. We got him online and in five weeks he fully funded and he is the first owner of this national franchise in Northwest Arkansas who is a person of color. And he has six children. He lives in a neighborhood with many of his friends and family who are also Hispanic and he's in Springdale, which is an incredible Hispanic Latin X entrepreneur community that has never gotten the attention it should and so that thrills me that Kiva was able to fill that huge vacuum of this person who had a track record of being the reason they offered to him was he was their most successful driver and salesperson but just that $10,000 enabled that and the impact that's going to have on his children, on his community, on his church, on everyone who sees him as the owner with that truck and that national franchise. So that's one of my favorite Kiva stories that we have in Northwest Arkansas. Yeah, thank you Matar. It's true though. I've seen data from Brookings Institution on the approver by banks on small business loans and according to the data, the large banks approve approximately 60% of loans sought by white small business owners but only 50% of Hispanic small business owners and only 29% of black small business owners and so this start disparity in access to capital, I think it's a primary factor to why entrepreneurs of colors own less than 20% of businesses with paid employees despite making nearly 40% of the nation's population. So I want to continue with a question so maybe Janem, how about you? Is there a favorite impact story that you can share? Yeah, and I like to say, we think about impact generally the way I'm sure all of us do, which is we measure, we have MPS and we measure revenues generated and we measure jobs created so endeavor entrepreneurs have created over 4 million jobs and we look at that across our region but I think what's really exciting and what we think that virtuous cycle of entrepreneurship that I spoke about so we think a great measure of success is the fact that our endeavor entrepreneurs who have gone through a lengthy selection process who may or may not have gotten capital from endeavor it's certainly not necessary and a lot of our entrepreneurs do bootstrap. They then have their successful moment either it's a liquidation event or a growth or an acquisition, something that enables them to have a little bit more time than a crazed founder who's in the thick of it but they then join our board. So that's really what I think about we're only a two and a half year old office but our offices in Argentina and Brazil and Chile which are almost 25 years old their success stories is that half their boards are made up of endeavor entrepreneurs who've scaled and now are giving back to the next generation so that's really how we think about success and hopefully that's where we'll be in at least by year 10 forward but another way we think about it is a great story so Brian Brackeen who is on the endeavor Louisville board he was actually selected as an endeavor entrepreneur in Miami for out of our endeavor Miami office relocated and he and his wife started Lightship Capital and Lightship Foundation. Brian Brackeen is on the board of endeavor Louisville so stayed not only within the endeavor family but switched offices in terms of support based on his life and then his wife Candace Brackeen is joining my board because of their work in Northwest Arkansas and well Tulsa and hopefully Northwest Arkansas soon so there's a whole network is able to support itself and hopefully you know we'll be able to have a few of our earlier endeavor entrepreneurs join our board in the next few years. That's wonderful endeavor is like a platform for like entrepreneurs to come back and give back the expertise to the community. Yeah. Oh yeah. Kenan back to you. Yeah I was dreading this question and I was I was I hate that I have to answer because it's like picking you know some of your your favorite children at times but you know I think all of us have gone so close to the entrepreneurs that that I think we serve right that that ultimately we work for and so to say you know some of my favorites it's tough but you know I think I love the answers that were just provided in terms of you know what impact looks like so to answer off on that I think we're all looking at some similar things right what is you know revenue per employee what is payroll per employee because then you can truly measure the the economic impact obviously in those communities that we're serving but I think one of the more soft metrics that isn't always talked about is just the spark you know and just the the light bulb going off of confidence and I think when when I look at you know black entrepreneurs and people of color there is so much talent and yet a lot of insecurity because I call it the trauma of generational poverty right a lot of times there's almost self-sabotage when you don't think that you can achieve things it's it's why I wear a hat that says normalize black excellence you know almost every day because we need to normalize that right we need to believe it and historically we can prove it now we need to make sure that we have resources provided right in education there to enable that going forward but if I was to give two examples I think two that I'm extremely proud of you know one is Camille Martin with ceasefire just a PhD student unbelievable have come up with you know an amazing active that's going to change the landscape of beauty care especially with protection from visible light but has never built a brand right didn't know exactly what she was doing you know a pure student right I mean she is what I call extremely book smart and what she's done right from a research standpoint but how does she commercialize it you know we took her through our program called in the black adventure noir and out of that we were able to get her a partnership with both a mass you know contract manufacturer that can be a buyer of her ingredient revenue we have a brand that is developed and now looking at distribution with two major retailers so over the course of ten weeks she is completely transformed from being an amazing student and an innovator to now a business woman who is going to impact the lives of a lot of people I think there's another one that I I just personally love because I love the stories of the founders but that was a group called sober sidekick and you know the I think many of us on this call alone have been introduced to these founders and they're just some incredible entrepreneurs I think they have a founder story that is rooted in their battle with addiction and their pathway to sobriety but I think not again seasoned entrepreneurs in terms of how they're looking at where their impact is they were focused on revenue and not understanding that they were scaling community and I think we were able to take them both yes we can improve their revenue and go from 20,000 monthly reoccurring revenue to 60,000 but now positioning themselves to receive term sheets that are in the two to five million range coming through a program so when I look at those individuals great entrepreneurs with a passion but focused on revenue which would make them more mainstream to now turning them into high growth entrepreneurs which I would not be surprised if they're unicorn entrepreneurs and companies here in the not too distant future you are for that those wonderful stories and Keena and I like your attitude creators for Ventrenor I did wow maybe you should like that selling them on your we're entrepreneurs we sell everything that's wonderful yeah so let's shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about the gaps that you continue to see as you work on the ground with the entrepreneurs I know you are working to improve the ecosystem and I'm curious if you observe any of you know existing herders that will hinder entrepreneurship so let's start with you Keenan I think hurdles you know look again when you're focusing on black entrepreneurship it is now become popular right I think everyone wants to say they have an impact organization impact fund but yet haven't done an actual theory of change right and can't describe what that impact means and how their efforts are so I think one of the hurdles that we're having is moving the conversation on you know just how do you fundraise and take advantage of this heightened sense of awareness but focus the energy and on achieving true impact so you know part of our work is oftentimes you know showcasing our point of difference from the 700 other organizations that have impact somewhere within their mission statement or name but I think other than that it's bringing real solutions to corporate partners to show how the economic impact that we're creating for the communities we serve also is driving profitability for some of these larger organizations who have the challenge with scaling so what we're doing now is actively taking impact and moving it on to the scorecard of a lot of these corporations right so that now their employees are incentivized to work properly with groups and organizations like the three of ours that are on here today that are impacting some of these underserved communities so I would say that's one of the hurdles that we face but that's why we all are here doing the work that we're doing so I think I'm optimistic and extremely confident that it won't be a hurdle for too long that's great to hear that it won't be a hurdle for too long is there any particular when working with entrepreneurs do you see any particular barriers that they face right now aside from what you mentioned yeah it's mental right I mean entrepreneurship let's be clear all of us have organizations that are helping entrepreneurs but many of us may have been entrepreneurs that didn't take advantage of any of these and were successful I am one of them I launched a company, my first company and didn't take in any capital and was able to scale that but I think what was different about me than some of the entrepreneurs and I think a lot of this when we talk about entrepreneurship it's the battle within yourself it is a game of confidence and it's extremely extremely challenging when you come from a community that has been overlooked and over mentored and under resourced for so long there have been empty promises that have been made to the black community for decades so our first step is just getting over that hurdle within them understanding that they have everything they need to be successful within themselves that was God given and I think now it is about connecting those dots once they have the confidence showing them now a glide path and connecting them with resources that weren't existing within their communities and I am glad Venture Norris here to help reduce some of the barriers faced by these entrepreneurs how about you Marta do you see any specific gaps in the ecosystem that you would like to see plugged I mean my dream panacea is for someone to fund me to have a non-profit where I go all over the United States into poor school districts and educate children about what a credit score is and how to start protecting their credit score from the age of 14 because so many of our communities people are not we're not privileged enough to grow up in families to understand how the credit world works how it really matters that you pay the electric bill on time and not a week later even though you've paid your bill that you understand how the credit card industry works how you understand how saving to invest and to buy real estate and things like that and of course the reason that history exists is because we've had intentional systemic discrimination barring people of color from purchasing homes or purchase and once the banks kind of opened up and on the surface got all you know equality then we still couldn't buy in certain neighborhoods so we have this huge gap of systemic discrimination which has multi generations of people who have not benefited from the privilege of ownership and equity building and collateral attainment so that their families could be educated so to me a way to do that is the youth of this country especially youth of color youth and families who have one or more parents inside in prison youth in foster homes youth in low income areas need to understand from a very early age about what the capital world looks like and how important their credit score is. Another thing is my entrepreneurs do not have access to technology they go to schools that don't have good technology in them they go to poor inner city schools so they don't have the skills even though we have sites that you can kind of set up your own website they don't have that comfort level with electronics or they don't own a piece of electronics to gain that comfort level and so they can't have a website and I tell my clients all the time not having a website for a business in 2020-21 is like not having a telephone for a business in 1975 okay it's that vital so that's an area and then lastly I would say some of it is also societal attitude that we have toward the service industry to people and toward those working in the food industry specifically like the restaurant and food truck industry not seeing them as professionals and so if society doesn't treat them as professional then obviously our children don't see us have the proper attitude toward them and see that as business owners you know business owners in the community to be respected whether it be a long care business a house cleaning business a home a business and so to me that's also another thing is raising that and one of the things that I hope comes from you know there are a lot of horrible things that have had a bright light shown on them due to the pandemic and I hope that bright light continues to show on the struggles of our black community and the systemic discrimination a bright light shown on the horror of working in a restaurant for less than minimum wage that whole world has got to change and so as we begin to see those people in those industries as business professionals hopefully the generations behind them the children will grow up with that attitude and see that those are worthy jobs that can also give them education and training to become owners of restaurants and owners of landscape businesses and owners of home health care businesses or beauty sports thanks Matta I do also agree with you that you know access to financial literacy education technology is really key and right now it's not equal amongst everyone in the communities and so we need to do more to level the playing field we are nearing the end of the session so I would like to hear from Jinem what she thinks about the ecosystem before we end yeah I'll go quickly but I think Keenan raised an interesting point about over mentored undercapitalized I think that's so true in the United States for our BIPOC founders and I think Martha touched on a really different kind of systemic issue that we have in the United States but I'll put on the global hat for a second it's hard for us as an organization to have a US centric point of view because we have in fact most of our entrepreneurs from a Hispanic or Latinx point of view and fact about underserved founders for us is very hard because we have Brazilian founders and all of them are Brazilian and their underserved communities are actually very different than ours in the United States same with Nigeria, same in the Middle East so from a global perspective it's hard to normalize those concerns but what I will say what we find as a gap is really access to tech talent in our underserved markets and I'll say this specifically about Northwest Arkansas and other fast growing companies here be it Acre Trader for example which is fantastic you guys should check them out all the way to now diagnostics or field agent they're all hiring and they're all hiring but don't have access to talent and the Northwest Arkansas Council and the Walton Family Foundation are doing some amazing work with things like the LifeWorks Here program I'm really excited for that because not only are they bringing in tech talent but they're bringing in a very much needed lens to make Northwest Arkansas inclusive how do we make our communities feel included here everything from artists to outdoor recreation people to tech talent but talent is a huge problem in all of our global endeavor communities hiring people being able to compete with people who are paying much higher wages in our bigger companies and it's hard to compete with that and so that's a big area for us and how we think about that and how we work with our communities so we have to work with our foundations and our university systems in order to create develop and produce the future tech talent generation and that includes our founders of color that includes overlooked founders that Martha may work with who have who never had access to sort of that tech training that could excel in those fields had they been given a chance so I'll end it with talent because I think we touched on some of the other ones but yeah big gap but I think we're all working to fill it that's wonderful observation I mean they are wonderful about traveling so as you can see we still have a lot of work to do to help advance entrepreneurship not only do we have the level of the playing field for capital that's also technology access internet and you know tech talent and so I'm really glad to have you all here in Northwest Arkansas working with us to help improve the ecosystem in this region I think this is a great and productive discussion and I would like to thank all of you that's wonderful panelists for their insightful participation it has been an amazing learning session for me and I hope for all of our audience as well thank you for being this part of this conversation and I hope you would enjoy our next video that showcases our entrepreneurial work in Northwest Arkansas would you say it's pretty easy to start a business heck no an entrepreneur is someone who sees new ways of doing things and is bound and determined not to rest until he or she achieves the goals


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's CaseBreaks.com, coming at you with 2021 Topps Archive Signature Series Baseball Retired Player Edition, five box random box break number six, big thanks to Corey and Andrea for getting in on the action here. So what we're going to do first is I'm going to turn on my camera, it's going to help, there we go. Remember all the boxes, so officially numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and then we'll randomize your names and numbers, 6 and a 2, 8 times, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8th and final time. So there's 8, Andrea, Andrea, Corey, Corey, Andrea, 6 and a 2, 8 times, 4, the box numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8th and final time. After 8 we've got 2, 5, 4, 1, 3. Alright so Andrea with box 2 and 5, Corey with 4 and 1, Andrea with 3. We're actually going to do these in numerical order. Alright so and we'll also keep track of your hits right here as well. Alright so Corey with the box on top, box number one. Good luck. And it's going to be a Hideki Matsui, one of one. He's got his facsimile autograph right here and then his real autograph right up there. Nice. Corey, all aboard the big hit express, whoop whoop. Alright Andrea is next with box 2, there's box 2 right there and it's a one of one, Crackerjack Ball Players Vlad Guerrero Sr. That's pretty cool, 2004. That's pretty sweet. Andrea, all aboard the big hit express, whoop whoop. And he also has box 3, oh there you go, and he's been trying to get a Vlad Guerrero Sr. autograph for forever, congrats and a one of one. Next one for you is Robin Yau, another one of one, 3 in a row, all aboard, whoop whoop. Corey you think there'll be another one here in box 4, we'll see. It's Nomar and it's another one of one, wow. Nomar Garcia-Para and his Red Sox gear, he does TV work for the Dodgers Network here in LA. It's hard to see the one of one in that reflection, you can kind of see it right there. Nomar for Corey, all aboard the big hit express, whoop whoop. Are we going to go 5 for 5? Last box is for Andy, good luck trying to peek if it is. We went 5 for 5 on one of ones and it's Nolan Ryan, Rangers Edition, whoop. There's the one of one in the top left over there, Nolan Ryan's autograph, right there. That's pretty awesome, Andy. All aboard the big hit express, whoop whoop, 5 for 5 on one of ones ladies and gentlemen. There's more in the store, I'm Joe for jasmiescasebrace.com, we'll see you next time for the next one, bye bye.