Ep. 8: Believe in You Money with Jessica Norwood, Nikishka Iyengar, & Andrew X (Part 1)

Written By Andrew X
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  • Jessica Norwood 0:07

    I think that's part of the title of the book believing you money. What would it look like if the economy loves black people? I have all the data that talks about the exclusion of black people out of venture capital, tech fields and mortgages all over the place. What would I want instead? And it became this beautiful rhythm in my heart, boom, boom, boom, boom, believing you money, you know, and it felt really very rich and very simple in a way of how do we show up for folks who we know the data says there isn't anything there. Nobody's showing up for folks in this way? How do we get in front of that and do something drastically different? The call to action in this is to know that it can be different and ask for it to expect it. There's so many things that we have just assumed and brushed off as well. Shucks, that's just the way things go. And the answer is in Anke just the way things go, and it doesn't work for us. And so if it doesn't work for us, then we should be about the business of changing it.

    RTR Themed Intro 1:09

    You ready, we get down to business investing in existence, shifting from a system steeped in extraction that steady sapping peoples and planet to cash in slashing, widening gaps in our access to land wealth, peace, satisfaction. Imagine basing relations on more than transactions. It's time for new pathways, and we need to shape them through our inner landscapes, our relations, our approach our dedication, we're on the road to repair as a commitment to transformation.

    Welcome to the road to repair a podcast exploring our journey out of the business as usual economy toward our collective healing and liberation. We are your co hosts Andrew X.

    Jessica Norwood.

    Unknown Speaker 1:53

    And I'm the Kiska ion gar

    RTR Themed Intro 1:54

    and we're very excited for this conversation. Welcome to the road to repair we are back the team of CO hosts here, the Keisha and Jessica and myself. It's been an incredible season. So far, as you've heard throughout the season, we've been talking a lot about Jessica's book, which will be released

    Jessica Norwood 2:22

    October 1020 23. I like that Tin Tin 23. I think that's gonna be really cute looking. I'm one of those people who definitely as a kid have all the color pins. And then I wrote, like a little heart over my eyes and everything. So thinking about 1010 23 for when the book comes out feels really Yeah, totally special.

    Nikishka Iyengar 2:45

    I love that. You said cute. Jessica. Like everything gotta be cute.

    Jessica Norwood 2:50

    You know, my vibe? Well, you know, my bad.

    Andrew X 2:53

    Yeah. And let it not be lost that you are very invited and welcomed to preorder a copy of the book now, for yourself. For some friends, it's going to be in high demand. So stay tuned for that. And today, you're going to get a deeper dive into what that's all about. Mukesh. Can I get to sidle up next to our dear sister, Jessica, and learn a little bit more about believing you money.

    Nikishka Iyengar 3:26

    If you've been listening to this season, you've been listening to a lot of interviews about reparative capital and non extractive finance and what that looks and feels like and of course, Jessica's work has been so rooted in creating new institutions that offer believe it you money and that are helping to create an economy that loves black people. Right, Jessica? That's the tagline as well, right?

    Jessica Norwood 3:50

    Yes, it is. Yeah. And a company that loves black people.

    Nikishka Iyengar 3:54

    Tell us all about it. Yeah, maybe if you can give us a little teaser from the book to read us a little something. That would be amazing. Yes, please.

    Jessica Norwood 4:03

    Yeah, let's start there. Let's start with a small reading of the book. And then we'll see where that launches us in our conversation, and our imagination about the topic. Watching my parents as business owners was one of the most influential experiences of my early life. I especially looked up to my mom who got her start as a young woman in the tech field specializing in education software design. Later in life, she expanded her entrepreneurship becoming a published cookbook author and CO managing the black boaters Summit, which was a travel company for black people who love sailing. She also traveled the world with her husband, Paul, and she made a stunning life for herself that was full of adventures and left an indelible impression on me. What my parents example helped me realize is that business owners can create the world they want, rather than simply accepting or recreating the world that's been handed to them. My mother was a powerful example of what some folks are now calling Black World making, and watching her in action was liberating for me. Back in 1992, when she was launching her education technology company, lots of people were getting rich in the tech world and mom hoped to be one of them. Instead, the white guys were given the green light for success. Today, when I read data from Project Diane reports that say Black Women in Technology get less than 1% of the billions of dollars in investment capital, it's clear that mom never stood a chance of getting the capital she needed or getting her dream off the ground. It wasn't until mom's death that I realized her beautiful, rich, entrepreneurial life was supported by bootstrapping. bootstrapping is often framed as this positive praiseworthy thing. Finding a way to survive, despite having no outside financing is an impressive feat, right? In reality, a bootstrap beginning is the best indicator that a company will have cash problems that ultimately slow growth. What I call believing you money is my proposed way to interrupt the widespread need for bootstrapping, among black business owners.

    Nikishka Iyengar 6:16

    Hmm, that was beautiful. And just hearing about your mom's journey, I don't think I had heard that story before.

    Jessica Norwood 6:24

    Yeah, I felt really important. That was one of the first things that I wrote, where I was really trying to get grounded in why believing you money was so important for me. And I just went back to watching my mom as this really talented and capable creator in the world and not having her shot, not having her chance to really shine her brilliance. You know, this book dives into this concept of racial wealth gap. And I think we talk about this a lot on the podcast, but more often when to say it's not even really a gap. I think it's insincere to call it that because it is an amalgamation of every violent, every terrorizing thing that has happened to black people to build wealth in this country from burning down their businesses to murdering and lynching to the things that we really understand and more modern day like use of credit score, or predatory lending, or these really exploitative strategies where folks say, Yeah, we want to invest in your company, but we're going to take over all of the ownership and push you out of your company. I think that there's this whole arc of exploitation of black and brown creatives and innovators. And it really starts to run alongside of these ideas that you should Bootstrap, but also that there is something inherent in the way that American interest in ideas around capitalism and business specifically tend to reward the exploitation of other people. And that really came back down to my mom, a black woman, like what was her experience? And what what I would have wished for her. And I think that's the other part of the title of the book believing you money. What would it look like if the economy loves black people, is to start to imagine like, what did I want for her? I have all the data. I have a lot of data right now that talks about the exclusion of black people out of venture capital, the exclusion of black folks out of tech fields, the exclusion in mortgages, the exclusion all over the place. What would I want instead? Where would I start? And it came to me and it became this beautiful rhythm in my heart that it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, believing you money, you know, and it felt really very rich and very simple in a way of how do we show up for folks who we know the data says there isn't anything there. Nobody is showing up for folks in this way? How do we get in front of that and do something drastically different? So that's the genesis of the book, and it came from my mom what I wanted her to

    Nikishka Iyengar 8:57

    have. That's so beautiful. What's your mom's name? Jessica?

    Jessica Norwood 9:00

    Merville? Yeah, I don't know if I actually write her name in the book. Oh, maybe in the end, when I'm giving my appreciations. I think I finally spell her name out. But in the book, she's just mom. She passed away right at the time that I was starting runway, which is our financial innovation firm that brings community led capital, long term patient capital to black communities to support their creatives and artisans, and innovators. So when I was starting runway is right at the time where I find out that my mother has cancer. And I'm doing these closing out of her life rituals. At the same time that I'm also trying to bring life into this idea of runway. So it's a really special moment to start the book with where I really was at that moment in time in my life, creating runway and really diving more deeply into these concepts that are featured in the book.

    Nikishka Iyengar 9:55

    Wow, that's so special. We're gonna dedicate this episode to Miss Marvel. and honor her memory. And obviously you're already doing that through all your work, Jessica but I would love to dedicate this episode to her.

    Jessica Norwood 10:08

    Oh, and Nikki, this is her birthday weekend. So her birthday is tomorrow. Oh my God. Look at this is why I just thought about it. This would be her birthday. She's no longer with us. She's an ancestor. But tomorrow is and she is a full on Gemini. This is her season. So she is like definitely nudging me to make sure that I say, and it's my birthday girl. So yes, she'll take the dedication. Apparently, energetically, she's like, thank you.

    Andrew X 10:39

    Oh my god, I love this Saturday, June 3, y'all is birthday. Yeah, Big Mom, big up mom, big shout out to rebel inspirational ancestor Marvell, who's now touched all of our lives. And I just wanted to echo what Nikki shared, I wasn't aware of a lot of that history. And I feel really moved by what you shared, I'm intrigued by the cookbook that you mentioned, but knowing who you've become and how her life has shaped yours. And also, I'm recalling from our first episode this season, when you were talking about the whole situation with issues around environmental racism industry in the immediate local area that you grew up, and I don't know if it's connected. But you know, you mentioning that she died of cancer at the beginning. And I'm just feeling the totality of that. And also, I agree with you 100%. I feel like we really need to find new language for the word racial wealth gap, it makes me think of in the food justice space, there's a real languaging of the term food desert to food apartheid. Maybe we start calling it something like wealth, apartheid, or something like that. But yeah, the racial wealth gap really doesn't cut it. But anyway, I just wanted to reflect I'm inspired even hearing that part of your story. So thank you for sharing that.

    Jessica Norwood 11:56

    Yeah, I'm absolutely happy to share it, you know, a couple of things that really are underpinning the book. I mean, you mentioned Andrew, about environmental justice, and the sort of racial inequity that moves inside of that space, and our health and well being. And there's a lot of conversation now about black maternal health and multiple different places where we can see the impacts of systemic racism and racial bias in all these places. And so this book is talking about it, from finance to say that, in particular, finance has been extremely racially charged and bias. And often we start to imagine that money doesn't have those racial biases, like a business deal, it's just a business deal. And either you negotiated good, or you didn't. And we don't really think about all these other things that are going into the mix of how people are determining concepts like risk. We talk a lot about in this book. And I think it was featured in the episode with Brendan Martin from see Commons and working world talking about right now we talk about risk, and we say that the risk is really to the capital holders. So if something goes wrong, who you have to make a hole is the person who provided the money. But what is the risk around not investing in the place? What is the risk around not supporting the workers or the people who are in that community. And so really changing our own understanding, if you're meaning to close the racial wealth gap, you'd have to really understand and talk about how we are thinking about risk, and the ways where we have really prioritized return of capital and even interest on that capital, even though we know that level of extraction has happened, even though we know that there has been a commodity what we need to reframe, as the environment where capital return. So there is something really important about tying in this conversation around reparative capital to the racial wealth gap and highlighting places where we've just accepted it as this is just good practice, or this is just true like that we could never change finance. So we can never change our mind about what it means to understand risk or how that shows up in our underwriting. And this is to say, No, you can change it. And in fact, we must change it at this point, it's imperative for us to change it. Our humanity really requires us to change it to make a difference. I love that question. What would it look like if the economy loves black people, I get a chance to interview some really great people in the book who answer that question. And what I love about when people answer the question Is it can go from tactical strategies and policy strategies to also really heart centered kinds of things and ideas and I love really hearing people understand that when we get it right for black people in America, indigenous people, we get it right for everybody. And so it isn't something where an economy that loves black people means that it doesn't love other people. In fact, I think it really means that we get to be loved really well.

    Nikishka Iyengar 15:06

    And Jessica, you shared and throughout the season two, you've shared snippets about runways work. But really, I think what's so incredible is you basically went into the belly of the beasts in terms of banking and finance, and created a product that is transforming how even these banking institutions think about believing new money, right? Or that this is their first like, foray into even grappling with some of these questions that your book is going into. And I'm just picturing stodgy old white bankers to sit and really grapple with the totality of the violence of financial institutions. I would love if you could share with our listeners a little bit more about both the early work of runway and that product y'all created, as well as some of the stuff happening now I know, there's been sort of an evolution of runways work, because I think like when I heard the examples, and the full scope of what y'all were working on, it was just super inspiring for me, too. And I think we haven't given our listeners that in depth view into runway. So I would love if you could share a little bit more about that.

    Jessica Norwood 16:14

    Yeah, Nikki, I mean, so the funny part is, we've interviewed everybody else, we have never interviewed each other. So there's also like, really generous and beautiful work that you're doing Nikki and Andrew, that we should make time at some point to talk about. But I'll take this moment right now to just say that yeah, runway started off with this idea of bringing believing you money to black entrepreneurs, we knew that there was this racial wealth gap that I've already said, is not really a gap. But that it meant that when you start off your business, people say, oh, you know, it's a great idea, you just created this amazing company, you should go and borrow some money from your friends and your family. And if you're a black entrepreneur, you're looking around thinking what friends, what family is gonna, you know, put this first round of capital that takes the idea, essentially off the napkin and brings it out into the world. And on average, that number is about 30,000, to maybe about $50,000, that people are able to get from like their alumni association, maybe their family members are really generous aren't, you know, but they have networks that will provide that kind of capital. But we're talking about the compounding impacts of racial inequality here. And so that level of disposable income to really support a startup and venture isn't going to be available for black folks. But it should be, it should be. And I was always really curious about how do we get to this world that loves black people with black people's voices and innovations and ingenuity isn't there because this early amount of money is never there, or that you've got a great idea. And a lot of businesses start and then they become stuck, they get going, maybe financing off of their credit cards, or just using one person's paycheck and the family and other persons working fully on the business. But all of those things, I think, are at a different level of disadvantage sometimes then, what their white counterparts might be. But people don't really talk about that level of inequality in that moment. They just sort of like, yeah, it's a business and your business should have been good enough to get out there. But we do know, shout out to Melissa Bradley and her work. But we do know that black entrepreneurs are spending up to $250,000 on higher interest rates when they're getting capital. They're spending it on coaching, they're going to conferences, all of this just trying to get to the kind of money that other folks already have. So we know that there is a huge problem here. And runway, wanted to step in to challenge that. And when we got started, this was maybe about six or seven years ago, some of the things in terms that we're talking about right now that we are taking for granted as like, oh, yeah, that happens. That was not happening in the streets. People weren't talking about the connection point between the racial wealth gap and black people and the fact that friends and family money wouldn't be available. That wasn't something that folks were articulating those thoughts together. We'd always known that access to capital was really important. But what type of capital when, where, and we have a lot of folks and financial institutions, whether this be banks or depository institutions, like banks and credit unions, they all say, Well, we have money available, but nobody is taking advantage of the resources that we have. But they're not really looking at like, oh, well, your underwriting strategy for this is going to preclude people from being able to meet some of these things that they don't have the collateral to put up or they won't have some of these things that again, we just take for granted as like, oh, that's just best practice. When we don't really think about oh no, you have a country that has been built on the predatory usage of finance against black people. So all your best practices As might be racist, and so, runway started off working with financial institutions who got that and wanted to make some changes, they authentically really wanted to serve and meet the black and brown communities. And they wanted to work with black entrepreneurs. And so you can want to thing and then all your systems and everything around it could do a whole other thing. And that was what we really learned a runway, we started off with the first product, which was a friends and family loan product that worked with depository institutions. And over the time, I think I illustrate one of the stories in the book where I talk about this moment where right after the pandemic, I was talking to a banking partner of ours, and the person I was speaking to was maybe, you know, righteously in shock, like we all were like, What is going on, and runway has a 95% portfolio of black companies. So we know that these companies that we work with can afford to be shut down in a pandemic for a week, a month, or however indefinite, it would have become at that point. So we're trying to do some work arounds. We're working with our banking partners to make sure we have deferments all manner of things. And we got to this point about deferments. So we have a loan product with the bank. And we got to this place around deferment for a portfolio that was parked at this particular bank. And the woman who on the phone kept saying, Well, we're gonna just take our position of working with everyone the way that we would in any other disaster. And she just kept repeating, and it's on the phone. And I just finally I said, but have you ever been through a pandemic? Like, I didn't think that it matched where she was going with the set of policies you wanted to place on this work versus the real conditions of black people in a pandemic right now? And what does that really look like? So there were conversations of taking existing policy things, and then really pushing it to a place where we were remembering the community remembering the people we were talking about, like, it's not just a policy, now you've got to bake that thought back into the historical harms, the relationships, all the things and then come up with a decision. And we ended up working together, it was iterative, it was pushing back and back and forth, and all of the dramas that go along with things. And then there was one moment where we said, Okay, we want to six months deferment, or our companies, and we've everybody finally agreed that they could do six months, but the system that they used only did month to month deferments. And so essentially, the entrepreneurs would have to call in every month and request a deferment. And we're like, oh, no, that's just not gonna work that is too traumatic. We are in a pandemic, black folks. and brown folks are, you know, on the front lines of health care, and they have to still, you know, and, and service industries, and they have to still work. And we can do it like this. And we're like, No. And so we go back and forth, back and forth, meeting after meeting. I'm not even in some of these meetings at this point, I'm not there. But it turns out that there was a button that needed to be redesigned, in order to make it go from one month to three months, and six months options. And so I remember being on the phone where everybody was silent when they realized it was a button standing in between us doing the racial equity work, doing the justice work and showing up for these entrepreneurs in a real thoughtful way. It was silence. And then I remember it was me or somebody else wanted to say, Well, can we change the buttons? And arrow? I was like, Yeah, I guess so. And so engineers and designers, and everybody had to come in and spend time redesigning the system to make it so that you could do three months and six months difference. But those are the kinds of things that working with a banking partner or you know, financial depository institution, partner, those are the challenges that we're up against around lining up our best understanding and most loving interventions, to get the people involved and then get the actual systems, the policies, and the technology working in relationship to what that economy that loves black people looks like. So we've done that. And then recently, we have launched our own fund because at a certain point, you realize like, all right, this is moving kind of slow working with all you banks, everything. And so right now, we're launching our National Fund, which will make that long term patient, non extractive explicitly loves black people, the kind of capital that we believe in available all around the country.

    Nikishka Iyengar 24:49

    It's so wild to me that I was like, can you just change? Like, why is that? Why is that such an uphill battle? I mean, it's wild to me because these are We're supposed to be like, You got to go get the big degree. And these are like some of the most well paid people and the level of innovation problem solving just doesn't seem commensurate with all of that. Anyway, thank you for the work you're doing. Jessica, it's still mind boggling that obviously we know how entrenched systemic racism is right? And anti blackness specifically, is in financial institutions. And it's just wild that something as easy as deferments are, which should be easy are such a complicated process. Each of us also has our own stories. I'm going through a story right now with with a CDFI, where this question of like risk and how actually the process of their underwriting has made our project harder to do. And anyway, I won't get into the details of that yet. It's got to be its own episode one point, but I flagged that because CDFIs, and we have an interview with Lesley Lindo, from all Amina fund in this season. And we talk about CDFI as Community Development Financial Institutions a little bit there. And I believe in EDS in Brendan's episode too. But anyway, they were created to sort of fill the gap that banks weren't addressing coming out of the civil rights era. And they ended up sort of mimicking a lot of that now. And I think in the moment that we're in, you know, coming out of the summer of 2020, and the murder of George Floyd and all the violence that happened in 2020, in the early pandemic, a lot of banks and CDFIs, and other financial institutions created products to solve in their mind and words, the racial wealth gap, when you look at a lot of those products, they're designed to obviously like profit off of this problem. And so anyway, I say all this to say that this is why the work of runway is so important, and your peers and allies in the ecosystem that are trying to create alternative financial institutions, as well as take these practices to the larger financial institutions that are so entrenched, it's both the inside and outside change that you're creating. I know that work is not easy. And I know a lot of it is obviously certain traumas being reinforced along the journey I can only imagine. And it's so important and meaningful. This is the work. So yeah, thank you for doing that. And gosh, I just can't wait to read the books.

    Andrew X 27:20

    I'm saying, I'm so excited to read the book. And I just have to share, I'm so inspired just by the profundity of the work that you've been doing, Jessica, but also that's particularly encapsulated as a practice in this book. And we're talking a lot about the entrenchment of these existing practices in the financial system. And my mind is harkening back to episode seven with Jess Remington and Joanna Lovett SEYA. One of their practices that they talk about, about reckoning with history. And as I'm hearing, Jessica, you share your story and also Nick kiszko, you know, you validating the experience like with the CDFI, and how all of that is going I'm thinking about this historian who created this incredible documentary, and I think we need to have him on the show and want to interview him. His name is I'm not quite sure if I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, but his name is David oluwo Soga, just to kind of quickly share a couple of snippets of what the essence is of what he's created. It's right in line with this conversation. I pulled a quote from an article in The Guardian, it says British banks and merchants heavily invested in the slave economies of the United States and South America, American slavery was British slavery. And then from the BBC. In 1883, Britain emancipated its enslaved people and raised the equivalent of 17 billion pounds in compensation money, but that money wasn't paid to the enslaved people. It was given to Britain slave owners for the loss of human property. It was the largest state sponsored pay out in British history before the banking crisis of 2008, taxpayers money went straight into the pockets of the people who had already profited from a cruel and inhumane business, the transatlantic slave trade. So we think of anybody can think of what's the capital of finance in the world, right, London, and this movie goes into the deep history of how that came about. And I'm going to be sure to link in our show notes. Also, there's a really incredible podcast where this historian David osoba, discusses basically how that formed the foundations of finance that we're talking about that create this now. So that reckoning with history practice, I feel like I'm feeling inspired to flush that out in connection to reading your book.

    Jessica Norwood 29:38

    Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Andrew. And I think throughout the book, there are stories that I'm sharing where I'm looking back, you know, that Sankofa principle looking back to go forward. So I'm sharing those history pieces, and it shows up really profoundly throughout the book because one of the pieces that are in the book, let me just say this is that I get to enter review some of our favorite wisdom keepers and thinkers. Sonia Rene Taylor, who is also in the seasons episode is featured in the book. And Sonia Rene Taylor is my goodness is such a brilliant orator, writer, thinker. We spend a lot of time in this book talking about history, and telling a true condom Mason, that theme about telling the truth. And there was this moment where in interviewing Kanda where I say, what would it look like if the economy loves black people, and she's quiet. This she says, I don't know, Jessica, if that's even possible. And it was a real moment where everybody in production and myself who were doing an interview, just kind of got quiet, because that's a real answer. That's a real response. I don't even know if that's possible. Because without telling the truth, about your experience about the experience in America, then we will have really well paid people who continue to regurgitate these policies, ideas, principles of ads, without even knowing where that came from, they will we will all be not even say, I'm in it to you, you're in it, we're in it. And Nikki, I appreciate it so much the beginning part about CDFIs, these community development financial institutions, but they were created specifically to address the civil rights issues. And to go deeper into communities of color. We're banks, we're sort of like, we're not able to do that. But we'll give our grant capital, we're making, you know, really low and modest loans to the CDFI field. And they can do the lending and reaching out. But those same CDFIs, a lot of times, they end up regurgitating and re mixing the same set of bias practices around thoughts around risk and thoughts around collateral and credit and, and even the complexion of their board or how long it takes them to close a deal or not, when you know, you might be working with a community that is differently cash strapped, they can't hold out for months and months on end while you go through this really ridiculously long process. So there has been a place where our financial institutions broadly from depository till CDFI, loan funds to other kinds of loan funds all the way to our angel investors, our equity funds, venture investors, all that whole mix of debt, Grant philanthropy, everybody in financial services, that is providing capital, that gets to the echo system, supporting and around black entrepreneurship, really needs to understand history, you really have to get intimate with telling the truth about that. Otherwise, we will continue to put out old ideas and old thoughts that are racist, that do not love black people, and we won't even know why we're doing it. And so this book is really talking about some of those ways to kind of check yourself before you wreck yourself vibes, you know, like, Okay, well, what do I need to really check in on myself personally? How do I check in on the group of us that are working on this? Maybe it's your team or your company? Or maybe your most intimate ecosystem partners? And how do I check in on the overall system of things? And my hope here is that more and more people start thinking, Oh, well, these need to be transformational relationships, we need to be about transforming a condition, not just doing a transaction, that we need to be about thinking about the risks that the community faces, not the risks to the capital holder and capital provider, that we really need to be thinking more about places where we can show up more authentically and fully for the communities that we know have been excluded and have been left out. I'll stop there. But yes, history. Yes. truth telling.

    Nikishka Iyengar 34:15

    I'll just say one more thing. And I want to read actually something from runways website. Because sometimes the people that are working in these institutions wanting to solve for institutional or systemic barriers, with the best of intentions, sometimes even on the one hand, yeah, folks that are working in their thing, they're solving for it through their products. On the other hand, sometimes these issues can feel so big, so large, so unwieldy, because they actually are there, the air we breathe, and it can feel overwhelming, and where do we begin? And if CDFIs for example, or the other solutions that have emerged since the Civil Rights era are not solving for it, and are actually becoming come listen in and then what what the answer is? Because that's what I get sometimes that's a response when I challenge some of these institutions, and I'm sure you've gotten that too. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think that's why the work of runway because you're not just creating these products or working with these institution to create alternative products, you were also breaking down the process and in asking people to transform their process and actually kind of holding their hand or creating a model for it in in just how you all state your own boundaries. So I wanted to read something really quick because on Runway by the way, for all our listeners, you should go to runways website and look at their funder manifesto.

    Andrew X 35:40

    Runway dot family.

    Nikishka Iyengar 35:42

    Yeah, put that in the show notes because this really brings it down to like you said, the relational level Jessica and not the transactional level. I mean, it is transactional, but the relational level as well I'm gonna read this really quick. This is a manifester. That runway has an A for investors that want to engage with runway funders that one engage with runway you have to abide by these. There's a lot of different commitments here, but I'm gonna read this one. I will honor the time and labor of the runway team as they fulfill their mission of transforming deeply entrenched systemic barriers for black entrepreneurs. I will make every attempt to make requests that balance my need to fulfill my organizational requirements with their need to balance fundraising and program delivery, where possible, I will reexamine time consuming excessively burdensome administrative processes and streamline my request for information. Furthermore, I will be cognizant of opportunities I may see where I can reduce, eliminate or redirect expenditures of time or resources that may arise through a partnership. And I wanted to read this because oftentimes, what is the so column mundane of bureaucracy and processes actually, where a lot of this racism lies, it's usually given a quick pass to when financial institutions, their first instinct is to rush to create a new product, oh, well, maybe we create a product at this interest rate. Or maybe we create a product that addresses this community and their instinct is to go to their product, but they're bringing the same old processes that they have internalized over the years and decades and centuries, and are replicating the same thing. So no matter what the product looks like, it's not the product, it's the process. For any funder, investor banker, listening to our season, I would really encourage you to check out runways manifesto. And for any organization that wants to work with investors, I think developing a manifesto like this is so necessary because we I am just coming out of a super traumatic experience with a CDFI. Where To your point, Jessica, their process has taken so long, it's been two years to where our interest rates are so high now that they're telling us we actually can't take the loan that we needed, and they're reducing our loan size and creating further bureaucracy. So anyway, if we had had this manifesto at the guild on the outset, I think that would have saved us a lot of trouble along the way. So yes, I encourage everybody to take a look at this.

    Jessica Norwood 38:05

    Yeah, I'm glad you lifted it up. I do mention the manifesto in the book. And it was created by our chief investor relations, Melissia delea, it was started from this conversation that we were having in fundraising and really, of right sizing, how much we were going to do if we're if we're about repair. This is the organization, a group that is run by black women. And that matters in the store. Because I'm not separate from the subject I'm talking about. There's ways where I've been in, in this work years before runway where I really felt like this was you do what you got to do you get the money, you almost cleanse the money like, Okay, I don't really care where it came from a young one had to jump to these ridiculous hoops and write all these reports and do all these weird things and measure things that don't even really matter to me, or the people that I'm working with. But I got to do that in order to get the money, I'm gonna play the game. And we came in and said, Oh, no, we're not playing the game, we're going to be in order to do this. Because those things that we would do and have done in the past, that would mean that we'd pass that on to the entrepreneurs that we worked with. So if we took an exorbitant interest rate, then that means that we're tacking that on to the interest rate we're offering them if we took these ridiculous kinds of terms or request, then that means now I'm turning around and requesting these things from them, or I'm moving in a way that is suspicious or isn't really like trusting of their talent or their knowing because people are moving suspicious and not trusting of me. So there is a way where when we set that baseline, we're setting it for every other person in every other relationship that comes in contact with us. And we're saying this is how we orient ourselves is how we manage power. This is how we talk to each other and right relationship with each other. This is how we move through these really complicated issues. And one other thing I'll add to this Niki is back to these financial institutions and people who might be well meaning, this is something that I don't think comes up often enough. And I devote a whole chapter to this, I have experienced where everybody will say every other thing. They will talk about terms, they'll say, long term patient capital, they'll say regenerative, they'll use every other word, but they'll never say black. And that to me really matters. Because who are we doing this? For? Who What are we repairing here? So I talk about what it means to be anti racist. And I think a lot of these institutions that say, they want to close the racial wealth gap, but then I say, but are you anti racist? Because you got to be anti racist, you've got to be committed to dismantling racism, personally, systemically, in order to see where these little things like a button, or these things like taking two years to close a deal and the interest rate goes up. And what that means for these black and brown entrepreneurs, on the other end of those conversations, if you are doing your work of dismantling racism personally and systemically, you're going to be in question about that. And then you start to make the changes of the policy or then you can make the product. But if you have no commitment to talking about racism, and history and the inequality of that, and what got us to this particular place, then you can't actually do the work of changing anything. So we have a lot of institutions who will put stuff out there. And then when you get down to brass tacks, so to speak, and you're saying, Okay, are you clear that while racism is a construct, and that we're all human beings, interconnected in this sort of same thread of life, that there has been a racialized agenda that has happened and has created this wealth inequality. And it's our responsibility to redistribute, to bring creativity, to bring liberation, to bring these things forward in our work as financial and capital providers, I think that part of it is really critical, Nikki, and I think we all are in a space where we just assume that or you're saying some of the buzzwords that we really love that it means that you're also moving with an anti racist agenda. And I don't know that we've said that to each other very clearly. It we're assuming it, but I think we got to get proximate. And so the manifesto really is born out of black women's labor, it's underscoring, with the level of extraction has been at the hands of people who've even said that they were friends to us and into our communities. And so many organizations, other people who have funds, other friends have gone on use that manifesto, created their own versions of it, and credited runway and thanked us a big up, that's for sure, at different points. We've even been invited to come and speak and work with cohorts of people who are managing nonprofit organizations that are moving with philanthropy, or private capital and level setting. Because at the baseline of this, we have trauma, we have scars, we have history that has been pointing to finance a capital, that as the provider tours inside of those things, and we need to be able to show up in a way that feels authentic and real for ourselves. And so a manifesto really helps to ground in that point.

    Nikishka Iyengar 43:34

    Yeah, are we explicitly naming not just anti racism, but anti black racism, because I think anti blackness, Andrew was talking about the history of our financial institutions and finance as an industry across the world for centuries. And it is important to name that and to transform it at every level. So what does believe in new money look like? What is it feel like? Jessica, maybe there's some examples you want to start with from the book about the people you've interviewed to give people a very tangible idea that yes, these things we're up against are huge. And I want to lift up condos, hesitation, skepticism, pause, whatever was felt in that moment about whether or not we can truly create an economy that loves black people in a real and honest way and want to uplift that. What are some examples that at least begin our journey towards that that you were able to spotlight in the book?

    Jessica Norwood 44:32

    Yeah, let's do it. Let's talk about it. So in the book, I think the important thing is there's so many beautiful points from condemnation. Maka Agbo. Sonya, Renee Taylor Brynden Martin, Pastor Andrew Wilkes, there's so many really beautiful voices that are doing a job of weaving some very practical answers of here are some things that you can do in these broader themed points. What I want to leave people with is the call to action. And this is to know that it can be different and ask for it this piece of like, okay, I know that there's a manifesto out here or I know that I should be getting a different treatment from the CDFI or from this bank, to know it and ask for to expect it to talk about it and get comfortable with language around I think that will be the most beautiful iteration of this work, or the movement of this work will be that we all are aware, and we're talking about it again, I keep underscoring that there are so many things that we have just assumed and brushed off as well, shucks, that's just the way things go. And the answer is innate, just the way things go. And it doesn't work for us. It's if it doesn't work for us than we should be about the business of changing it.

    RTR Themed Outro 45:47

    Thank you for joining us on the road to repair. Our greatest hope is that this show will have a transformative impact for those of you tuning in the Rhodes repair podcast is produced by Andrew X Nikica Yun gar and Jessica Norwood with post production support from Andrew X. Music for the show was produced by Andrew x in close collaboration with artists and sound designer Zachary Seth Greer and the luscious vocals and original poetics of Nyima pediment. Shout out to sofa hood for all of the amazing artwork, you can check out more of all of their great work on their websites which you can find links to add the road to repair.com We always love the social media shout outs and you can help this message ripple out to those who might really benefit from it by rating this show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts. And if you feel called to you can make a donation to support the show at WWW dot the road to repair.com Thanks again for tuning in. And stay tuned for our next episode.

    We stand with the land we are far more than a commodity. We joined with a water bodies are not property. We're reclaiming our shared sovereignty and shaping an economy based on reciprocity, cooperative, accountable round and justice and ecology. The Empire is toppling who want to be about this prophecy. We've been summoned to the summit, shall we here for something what is now possible? Who are we becoming? The road to repair is sponsored by the guild in one way. The Guild develops community own models of land housing in real estate as a means to build power and self determination in black and other communities of color. Runway envisions a world where black entrepreneurs thrive in a reimagined economy rooted in equity and justice.

Andrew X
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Ep. 9: Believe in You Money with Jessica Norwood, Nikishka Iyengar, & Andrew X (Part 2)
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