supporting Female minority owned businesses
This section of Lady ChangeMakers is dedicated to minority female business owners.
44% of women-owned businesses are minority owned. While it’s exciting to see this many POC starting businesses the number is rooted in systemic racism.
The majority of these women state that they started a business do to work environments. Whether it was being overlooked for a raise or promotion, hostile environments or being overworked. These women saw starting their own business as their only way to move up.

Resources
See Available Resources for female minority business owners
How to Support WOC
Resources to educate yourself and take action to fight for rights of POC.
Special programs
Programs and grants just for minority owned businesses
Mentors
Where to connect with mentors
Coming Soon
How to support Black Women & The Black community
It is up to all of us to stand up and fight for injustice. Educate yourself and take action. Education is not enough. It is not enough to sit back unless action is taken. Below are several resources on how you can support the Black community and WOC business owners.
Would like to thank Sarah Sophie Flicker & Alyssa Klein for compiling this doc where many of the resources below were found
Amplify voices of Black women
Below is a group of women to follow who are fighting every day to make change. Please learn from them and support them.
- Rachel Elizabeth Cargle
- Rachel Rodgers
- Brittany Packnett Cunningham
- Desiree Adaway
- Ericka Hines
- Sonya Renee Taylor
- Aisha & Des from Creative Label
- Shirien
- Toi Smith
- EbonyJanice
- Thea Monyee
- Rachel Ricketts
- Simone Mcnish
- Vp Wright
Building an intellectual legacy through teaching, storytelling & critical discourse.
Follow her and her projects on IG @rachel.cargle🌿@thelovelandfoundation🌿@thegreatunlearn🌿@elizabethsofakronlinktr.ee/1thatgotawayy
Mission: Is to help women hit seven figures without sacrificing their families and sanity. I am an entrepreneur and I’m a mother. I run a seven-figure business and I’m in the front row of every dance recital. I’m picking my kids up from school every day. I’m watching Peppa Pig cartoons in bed on Sunday mornings. If you’ve ever seen me speak at an event, chances are my three children were in the front row. When people tell me you have to choose between family and business, I say bullshit.
Follow: Rachel IG @rachrodgersesq Web – helloseven.co
activist
Follow her on IG at @mspackyetti
#podsavethepeople cohost
@nbcnews/@msnbc contributor
@gucci changemaker
@sephora equity advisor
@kidnoble’s +1 4 life
saved by grace
she/her
Author, cute animal squealer, unapologetically committed to radical self-love as a path to liberation.
Public Relations, Marketing & Branding @creative.label
featured in @forbes @popsugar @facethetruthtv @weddingchicks
Click the 🔗👇🏽www.itscreativelabel.com/clickme
Follow on IG @shirien.creates
infusing design/illustration + my passion for social justice and healing to imagine and create new possibilities / based in chicago / roots in فلسطين
Follow on IG @toimarie
❊ Womanist // Creator // Mother
♡ Founder of @blackwomenarelove and @business.for.the.people
⫸ Teaching about digital business at @toimariestrategylinktr.ee/toimarie
Follow on IG @ebonyjanice
🙏🏾HipHop Womanist
🔮Founder @blackgirlmixtape
😴Master Dreamer
🗣Cultural Anthropologist
📚Professor|Lecturer
🎙#PreachEb #CasuallyBrilliant
⬇️Booking Infobit.ly/HeyEbonyJanice
Follow @theamonyee
HBO/OWN/FoxSoul•@godaddy Maker•Healing Through Liberation|Joy|Pleasure|Change•@shapingtheshiftpodcast•@marleyayoconsulting •@demblackmamaspodcastlinktr.ee/theamonyee
Follow on IG @iamrachelricketts
💞 racial justice educator • spiritual activist • changemaker • healer • author •
✨spiritual activism for facing the tough sh*t
🇨🇦 Toronto | 🇺🇸 NYC www.linktr.ee/iamrachelricketts
Follow on IG @simone.mcnish
Simone | BIZ+DIVERSITY COACH
I help entrepreneurs create inclusive businesses, elevate WOC and develop a diverse community!
⬇️ Women of Color Entrepreneur FB group!
vp wright | business coach
founder // the creative’s corner
I help millennial creatives embrace their inner CEO + build a sustainable online business.
✨ join the community ↓pwright.com/clickhere
Donations & Funds
There are several ways you can support the Black community.
Places to donate for activism:
- Minnesota Freedom Fund
- Black Visions Collective
- Unicorn Riot
- Reclaim the Block
- North Star Health Collective
- Text “FLOYD” to 55156 to sign Color of Change’s petition and demand that the officers who killed George Floyd are brought to justice
- Contribute to local community Bail Funds – article found here with different city’s bail funds or here
- Additional Bail Funds google docs and harmed black-owned businesses here
- FightForBreonna.org
Support black businesses
Put your money where your mouth is and make sure you are supporting black businesses
- Directory for black owned businesses
Podcasts
Take a good look at your podcast playlist, what do you see? Diversify what you listen to.
Places to donate for activism:
- A directory of black podcast hosts
- Fare of the Free Child Podcast
- Integrated Schools Podcast
- Sistahs Connect Podcast
- Blk Pod Collective Podcast
- Why Won’t You Date Me? Podcast
- Fruitloops Podcast
- Brown Ambition Podcast
- Be Well, Sis Podcast
- Support Is Sexy®️ Podcast
- Melanated Conversations® Podcast
- Entrepreneurial Minds Podcast
- Melanated Mom Podcast
- The Mocha Message Podcast
- First Name Basis Podcast
- Parenting Forward Podcast
Educate Yourself
It’s important to educate yourself and learn about your privilege.
- A great online bookstore to support is the Decolonize Your Mind
- Follow the ladies listing above and learn from them
- Support and learn from Rachel Cargle’s Unlearn Project
- Take Rachel Ricketts’ Spiritual Activism 101 & 102
- Your Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup
- America’s Racial Contract Showing Article
- Creating Parenting and Education Resources through a Critical Race Lens Membership
- The FINIMPACT site has also put together a list of resources
Videos
There are important videos you can watch regarding race, privilege, and what you can do to support the black community
- 13th – Netflix
- Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives video
- How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion video
- American Son (Kenny Leon) — Netflix
- Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 — Available to rent
- Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada) — Hulu with Cinemax or available to rent
- Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu) — Available to rent
- Dear White People (Justin Simien) — Netflix
- Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler) — Available to rent
- I Am Not Your Negro (James Baldwin doc) — Available to rent or on Kanopy
- If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) — Hulu
- Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton) — Available to rent for free in June in the U.S.
- King In The Wilderness — HBO
- See You Yesterday (Stefon Bristol) — Netflix
- Selma (Ava DuVernay) — Available to rent
- The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution — Available to rent
- The Hate U Give (George Tillman Jr.) — Hulu with Cinemax
- When They See Us (Ava DuVernay) — Netflix
Books
Pick up a book and learn
- Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners
- 31 Children’s Books
- Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
- Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Dr. Brittney Cooper
- Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
- How To Be An Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
- Raising Our Hands by Jenna Arnold
- Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, PhD
- The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
by Grace Lee Boggs - The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga
- When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson
Socials to Follow
Follow the below accounts and learn from them, support them and take action with them
- Antiracism Center: Twitter
- Audre Lorde Project: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Black Women’s Blueprint: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Color Of Change: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Colorlines: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- The Conscious Kid: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Equal Justice Initiative (EJI): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Families Belong Together: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- MPowerChange: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Muslim Girl: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- NAACP: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- National Domestic Workers Alliance: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- RAICES: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- SisterSong: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Grants x Loans x Programs x Funding for Minority-Owned Businesses

General Resource
MBDA
MBDA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that promotes the growth of minority-owned businesses through the mobilization and advancement of public and private sector programs, policy, and research.
The foundation’s advisory board chooses the winners, looking for women with passion and a good story. Businesses operating in the U.S. and Canada are eligible.

Program
8(a) Business Development program
If willing to put in the time and effort getting into this program can have a big payoffs for minority owned businesses.
Once accepted businesses would be awarded government contracts without the worry of competing bids. The government’s goal is to award at least 5% of all federal contracting dollars to small disadvantaged businesses each year.