Minority-owned businesses are in need of support, not only when nationwide unrest turns the spotlight of ethnic minorities, but at all times of the year.

Founded in 2009, the Utah Black Chamber of Commerce was developed as a platform for black Utahns and other minority-owned business owners to create a network of resources. In 2020, the Utah Black Chamber secured more than $60,000 to build the Black Success Center.

This year, the chamber reached over 200 members made up of individuals, small businesses and organizations across the state.

“We began this journey to not only foster a more diverse workforce in our state, and a more inclusive atmosphere for Black Utahns, but to bring more value to our members to improve and expand their businesses,” founder and executive director James Jackson III said in a statement.

The Utah Black Chamber of Commerce is a statewide effort to support black businesses, black employees and people of color who are funneling into Utah communities.

Additionally, the chamber’s representatives try to make sure they take a leadership role across diversity as a whole, not just among the black population, working closely with the Asian, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ Chambers to support other minority business owners and residents.

Cameron Williams, founder and CEO of EverWoke as well as the director of diversity engagement and principle sales architect at Domo, leads the Utah County chapter of the Utah Black Chamber of Commerce alongside Giles Boyd — president and CEO of Protocol — and Karen Rodriguez — founder and CEO of Code in Color, and Director of Marketing Communications for the Utah Black Chamber of Commerce.

Boyd quote

“If you’re running a race and you’re equally as fast but one of you has a 50-yard head start, there’s no way for the other person to catch up. There has to be a pointed effort to support these businesses and help them to grow.”

– Giles Boyd, president and CEO of Protocol

As black business owners in Utah County, Williams, Boyd and Rodriguez experienced the hurdles business owners face when taking the leap and starting their own businesses.

There’s no shortage of ideas among minority communities, Williams said. In fact, these communities are highly innovative, but prospective black business owners rarely make it through the door.

There is an innate fear from the black community, Williams said, to venture off and start a small business due to a mindset created by a history of systematic racism.

However, the most significant challenge each of them has faced and has helped others overcome those challenges, they said, is funding.

“It’s not like the odds are stacked against us,” Williams said. “The odds are not existing for us.”

Across the nation, less than 1% of venture capital funds go to black businesses, and less than 0.2% of venture capital funds go to black female businesses.

While women of color receive venture capital funding less than men of color, women don’t have a lack of knowledge, Rodriguez said. Rather, it’s how women are raised to ask for help or money.

“When a woman decides that she does not want to be submissive but rather wants to ask for something in the same way or same manner that a man would ask for things, she is seen as an aggressor,” Rodriguez said. “We need to be able to dismantle those ideas so that women don’t have to find a different language to speak, but rather they are emboldened to speak the same language and ask for things freely and to be able to make it into the room to ask for them.”

People from an ethnic minority community are less likely to be able to afford the luxuries of taking time off of work to devote toward starting a new business. Minority innovators are less likely to take the risk of starting a business because they cannot gamble their paychecks.

If a potential black business owner does not have the funds readily accessible in their personal savings account, 401K, IRA or have the ability to take out a second mortgage, it is highly unlikely they will follow through with plans of starting their own small business.

“It is a major challenge to get to that next step in the growth of a business because the first step is one of the biggest problems that we have in our community,” Williams said. “Just as much as funding is a problem and the odds are stacked against us, there’s fear in there as well because I have to get my paycheck every month or every couple of weeks, I have to make sure there’s enough money in the bank to cover me for any scenario.”

When they take the chance and if funding is secured, however, it’s a whole new ballpark with unique challenges.

Marketing, exposure and successfully navigating the hiring process take time and money, and if a business isn’t successful in any of the three areas, it could mean permanent closure.

Moreover, a minority-owned business cannot solely rely on business from those in their racial community. Rodriguez told the story of a Latin business based in Orem. After only two years, the owners closed the shop when there was very little support for consumers outside of the Latino community.

“If you are a minority restaurant in a predominantly white area, you need support from white consumers to be able to survive,” she said. “That is where the support is truly needed. It can’t just be the black community supporting the black community. We need everybody supporting black-owned businesses.”

Even when minority-owned businesses are supported and successfully navigate marketing, exposure and hiring, they are still at a disadvantage, Boyd said. Other small business owners, he said, may begin to see minority business owners as a threat.

“When we stop seeing people as people and we start seeing them as threats, that’s when biases really kick in,” he said. “This is one of those things where if you haven’t seen it for yourself it’s going to be hard for os to realize and see it. You’ve seen glimpses of it in passing, but you didn’t really know what it was.”

Consumers can support minority businesses by actively seeking out opportunities to shop locally, and small business owners can further support minority communities by hiring minority employees and partnering with diverse vendors, Williams said.

In fact, Boyd said, diverse businesses are 30% more profitable than businesses with little-to-no diversity. Williams said when employers refuse to hire minority employees, they could be losing out on the most talented and hardest working individuals.

“If you’re running a race and you’re equally as fast but one of you has a 50-yard head start, there’s no way for the other person to catch up,” he said. “There has to be a pointed effort to support these businesses and help them to grow. We need to do a better job in being more purposeful in what we’re trying to accomplish.”

In light of the death of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minnesota after Officer Devin Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes during an arrest, international protests against police brutality erupted and demonstrators took to social media to amplify the voices of minority creators and business owners.

During Blackout Tuesday on June 2, social media accounts muted themselves, or posted black boxes to allow black creators and entrepreneurs the time to promote their work.

If small, black-owned businesses aren’t available in the surrounding communities, the next best thing is to support nonprofit organizations through service and donations.

“Dollars count,” Rodriguez said. “That’s a really good way for you to partner or stand in solidarity with a business is to use your money. This movement affects everyone.”

Consumers have also begun actively promoting black-owned businesses in an attempt to bring more customers to entrepreneurs of color.

Williams said while this is a step in the right direction, people of color should receive the same support any other day of the year.

“It’s not about just reaching out to your black colleagues or friends in these types of times or in times of calamity,” Williams said. “It’s about continuing those relationships, seeking those relationships, building those relationships ongoing from now into the future.”

Minorities wanting to start a business in a Utah County community can contact the Utah Black Chamber of Commerce to find resources and a community of people offering support during the process of securing funding and getting a business off the ground.

The Utah Black Chamber of Commerce is working to amplify the voices of black business owners, highlighting small businesses in several communities across the state, including Utah County. Boyd, Williams and Rodriguez invite people to join the conversation.