- We've got a great show coming up for you on American Black Journal, we'll take a look at the state of diversity, equity and inclusion in the corporate space.

More than two years after the murder of George Floyd ignited efforts to address the gaps.

Plus we'll get the details on a new fund that'll help minority developers in Detroit grow their businesses, don't go away.

American Black Journal starts right now.

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Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

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- [Narrator 1] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal in covering African American history, culture and politics.

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(upbeat music) - Welcome to American Black Journal, I'm Stephen Henderson.

The murder of George Floyd in May, 2020 prompted a lot of corporations and organizations to strengthen their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Many created Chief Diversity Officer positions to oversee the efforts to better reflect the diverse community.

But where do we stand today more than two years later?

I sat down with Marketing Consultant, Mark Lee of the Lee Group and Nikki Pardo of Global Alliance Solutions to get an update on the DEI progress.

So Mark, I'm gonna start with you.

We've had this conversation a couple times, right?

Right after the murder of George Floyd and the protests, you had these corporations come out and say, hey, we get it.

We gotta do better, we need to focus on equity, diversity and inclusion, we talked about a year ago.

I think about where we were.

We still, I think have some frustrations about what the response, the actual response has been by these corporations.

They've said they wanna do a lot, but brick and mortar, there isn't as much as we might expect.

- I think that's a very accurate statement.

Let's just circle back two years ago.

If you give for a quick moment, obviously after the George Floyd situation, we saw a huge increase in commitment statements and people were making that verbal commitment, if you will, to hiring DEI professionals at that point in time, that's fast forward to today.

And it's very mixed results.

It's actually somewhat frustrating in terms of the progress today.

But let me just give you a specific data point here.

Recently, a survey was done by the Creative Investment Research of the about 200 selling one U.S companies or corporations that made DEI pledges.

Now, financially, since that ratio injustice, if you were a couple of years ago, since the summer of 2020, these corporations estimated to pledge some about $67 billion estimated to pledge $67 billion behind DEI.

To the beginning of this year, only $652 million have actually been spent.

That's the 1%.

And as part of the frustration that we're seeing, there was a lot of gung whole excitement and commitment to it, but we put the dollars to the metal, so to speak, those are not coming through.

- And Nikki, one of the things that's also happening is that people are finding themselves in these roles in corporations and finding that maybe they're not all that they're chalked up to be and they're leaving.

Talk about some of the frustrations that are associated with just the idea of introducing these positions and these ideas into a corporate space that let's be honest is just not used to it.

- Yeah, that's a great question.

So I belong to two large like national organization or it's kind of an informal group of DEI practitioners.

And I also facilitate one myself and Mark has spoken twice and that he was hit and because he will give it to you.

He comes with that data and he gives it to you, Rob, you know, (indistinct) but I'll tell you what's happening now is we saw the trend of the bandwagoning post May 25th, 2020 when the world stops spending on its axis for 10 minutes.

And so these businesses, these organizations across all industries, we're clamoring and with these Chief Diversity Officers, CDO positions.

And so now we've revisited here, we are two years later.

And the feedback from my fellow practitioners in these groups they are very frustrated and I'm not gonna use an absolute and say all.

Some have made tremendous strides and really moved that needle.

But others are really frustrated and feel that they were set up to fail.

Where they have no budgets, so that means no professional development.

And everyone knows that this industry, I've been in and out collectively for 17 years, that is one of the fastest evolving industry.

So you have to keep up with trends.

So that means you have to get certifications or join organizations and with like-minded.

So yeah, that's where they are right now.

And in the beginning, I remember when I was having conversations with them, I'm like why the dashes and the slashes, like it would be CDO slash talent acquisition slash account manager.

I remember just getting that angry, but I was questioning it now they're grateful for it because now that the whole wave has kind of calmed down, they're able to return back to their TA positions or their accounting positions or their marketing positions or whatever it was.

And I always said in the beginning, like I called it the tap on the shoulder, like if you were black, if you were a woman, especially a middle-aged woman and expressed an interest, it's like, hey, you are new CEO.

And we saw that, and Mark, you could testify to this also, 'cause you have friends who this has also happened to.

So now the wave has kind of stopped and they're going to their respective corners and that's the way the trend is going.

- Yeah, no, I mean, that's really disappointing.

Mark, is this about a commitment that was harder to fulfill than these corporations thought it would be?

Or is this about, I guess a head fake of sorts that they said they were interested and turned out they weren't as interested?

- I think this is an issue with people, overly excited that put that in quotes, meaning that we have to do something, we have to do something.

We have to do something without properly planning for it.

And it was almost a knee jerk reaction to what happened in may of 20.

And what Nikki is saying is spot on a lot of people who were brought into these organizations and I'm just generalizing right now, okay.

Just generalizing, some people quite candidly were not prepared to take these positions.

And so with the organizations were doing, there was a knee jerk reaction, they brought them in.

And then when the people came in to Nikki's point, there was a lot of frustration, the average tenure of a person coming into it as to climb from 3.1 years in that position to 1.8 years in less than two year window, so think about that.

So bottom line was a knee jerk reaction, I think.

And as a result that there was not a proper planning and what we're seeing right now is a direct result of not having appropriate plans and resources in place.

- Yeah, one of the things that I think is really key to the success of people in these roles of course, is the senior management environment at these corporations, right?

And in a lot of cases, you've still got a senior management that doesn't reflect the general population.

There aren't enough women.

There aren't enough people of color.

Nikki, I wonder if you can talk about maybe the distinction between places that have done better with overall diversity and then introduce this idea of a DEI officer and places that still I guess are struggling with that concept or just not really embracing it.

It seems to me that the likelihood of success is at least in part dependent on how diverse the workplace that you're getting into is in its senior management.

- Yeah and there's so much research out there to support this McKinsey Reports.

I mean, all of that.

And, but I just wanna say...

I just wanna kind of dial back a little bit where I think things look different now, if that makes sense.

And like, if you go on Indeed or any other of LinkedIn or any of the platforms where the CDO positions that are embedded in the C-suite, they're kind of brought down a tier.

Where they might not necessarily be in the C-suite or the S-suite or the V-suite, but that next tier like a directorship or but I always say, if you're bringing it down those tiers, make sure that they are a direct liaison to the S and V-suite.

So, yeah, so it just is looking a little different, I'll say that and also I'll say too, in the industry's slight defense now companies are trying to wrangle in this remote work.

So everything has shifted to that where now employees are...

I mean, I'm sorry, employers and companies are like, okay, we're bringing everyone back and now they're losing people.

So it's just this whole...

So I think it's shifted to that, again, I'm not...

I am defending, but I'm not defending the industry, but yeah, it's just... And Mark, I don't know if you can.

- If I could just chime in for a second, 'cause all this is a direct result, a lot of factors, very briefly.

And what we're seeing here in terms of inter, not that lack of connectivity from the senior manage down in some cases that employees are beginning to feel alienated.

And so even the words, DEI, if you use the word diversity in side of organization, you have some employees they're becoming offended by that word.

And because they could feel as though the organization has not necessarily embraced it.

They may have verbally embraced it, but has not been socially embraced throughout the entire organization.

So it becomes a challenge of how do you make the employees feel that it is important throughout the entire organization, but what's happened the last 18 months or so, is that some employees viewed as a device of strategy and dividing people inside the organization.

And that's another challenge that needs to be dealt with as well.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And to kinda pick it up with what Mark is saying and what I'm seeing Stephen now is the employees are flipping it and holding the ELT teams and senior leadership accountable and calling them out.

As we see on all these different platforms where they're being very vocal and especially, I'm pro-millennials, so I don't wanna seem like I'm an anti, but they're really driving this narrative.

Like you made all these declarations two years ago, black people, we love you, we stand with you, we stand by you.

And some of these friends that I know personally were given promises and at like, okay, listen, we are gonna sponsor you.

We're done with mentorship, we're gonna sponsor you.

We're going pour all these resources in to you and to prepare you for that next jump that they did not receive.

- Yeah, yeah, I wanna talk just briefly about local and Southeast Michigan.

I know Mark, you work with a lot of local companies and Nikki, I know you did too.

Are we seeing something different here?

Something better maybe is maybe my hopeful, my hopeful statement there, or are we struggling as much as everybody else?

Mark I'll start with you.

- Thank you, I think from my perspective, I am working very heavily in this space.

I'm seeing people who are truly not just seeing a verbally, they're trying to make a change inside organization.

So I'm sure that outside of that spirit, there may be some other organizations that are grappling with this discussion as we're having this morning.

But by the same token, I think the people I'm working with, they get it, they're trying to make a change.

We still got a long ways to go all over.

- Yeah and Nikki, what are you finding?

- I'm seeing, like I said, it's slowed down a little bit and it looks different and I have more...

I have clients literally from coast to coast-- - Everywhere, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

And I'm seeing that there are some industries more than others that are sustaining their commitment.

But then, like I said, now things have kind of shifted back to figuring out how they're gonna manage all the remote and stopped the bleeding from employees with the great resignation, they're dealing with as well.

So it's a lot of different variables, but I'll say the momentum is there is just lessened.

- Yeah, okay, all right, Mark Lee, Nikki Pardo, couldn't have had two better voices to talk about this issue.

Thanks so much for joining us on American Black Journal.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank you very much, appreciate it.

- We talk a lot on this show about the challenges faced by minority business owners.

And we know that access to capital is a major obstacle for emerging African American entrepreneurs.

The ebiara fund was created to help alleviate some of the financial concerns for minority real estate developers here in Detroit.

The fund is a collaboration between the Kresge Foundation, the nonprofit and consulting firm, URGE Imprint.

I spoke with two of the funds partners, Keona Cowan and Rod Hardamon.

So let's start with this, the idea behind this fund, I think is so powerful because it aims directly at a real inequality, a real imbalance in our community.

Rod talked quickly about the ebiara fund and how you came up with this idea.

- Now, so the ebiara fund, it comes out of the genesis of being an entrepreneur, running a small business, and particularly being a real estate developer and realizing that the gaps of capital for equity are significant.

In Detroit, we have a unique ecosystem, where we have great CDI partners like Invest Detroit who have tried to solve in many ways, the debt financing challenges that real estate developers have, but they're still remained a solution that was necessary for equity, capital.

And ebiara speaks to kinda fill that gap and provide capital to black and brown developers or doing deals in City of Detroit who wanna grow on scale firms.

That's provides you the tools and the resource and the feel you need to do that.

- Yeah, Keona, as Rod said, this is a particular problem in Detroit.

It looks different here, I think, than it does in other communities.

Talk about why it's so important in Detroit.

- Well, so as Rod mentioned, it's filling a gap, but it's filling a gap from an affordable perspective.

And simply you think about the state of the City of Detroit and the multi decades of disinvestment.

We certainly need developers like Rod focused on development, access to a capital and housing, retail, everything.

We need all of it in our neighborhoods.

And without developers like Rod and others that are participating in this program, we wouldn't be able to do it.

But one of the things that outside of it being affordable, that's unique is there are other funds across the country, very much like this.

And the uniqueness here is we're partnering with a developer.

So you've got the voice from a funding perspective, a lender's perspective, but you also have the voice of a developer who knows exactly what these developers are going through, have experienced it, or is experiencing it.

And so that perspective allows us to deliver in a better, different way than other funds, because we have a holistic approach to supporting developers, supporting Detroiters in getting access to capital.

- Yeah, Keona, we've talked for a long time in this community about the problems with lending and again, the access to capital and the problem on the bank side and the other kinds of people who provide money.

Catch us up on where we are with that.

I mean, we've seen some movement, I feel like, but we're nowhere near where we should be in terms of people being able to get a fair shot at getting the funding for projects they wanna take on.

- Absolutely, so community development financial institutions, or CDFIs like Invest Detroit are really focused on breaking that barrier, increasing access to capital.

But what is also extremely important, and this is a component of this fund as well is giving that coaching that not just the technical assistance in order to get access to capital, but these are emerging or startup businesses in a lot of cases.

And what they need is help with what they don't know until they're facing the situation.

And so that coaching component, well beyond just access to capital is so important such it allows them one to survive, right.

And then have longevity to it, such that we can lift up more businesses.

So I think that's one of the components that has certainly helped us as we continue to reduce that gap and that barrier for access to capital as technical assistance.

The other thing is affordable access to capital just because you are a startup, just because you're emerging, just because you're learning doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be expensive, right.

And so what we're working on at Invest Detroit with in this particular fund, but in other funds where we're supporting small businesses as well, is how do we make this affordable?

How do we utilize foundations and federal funding to reduce interest rates to then also increase that probability and their cash flow such as they can be successful?

- Yeah, so, Rod, I wanna give you a chance to talk a little about the environment and the experiences from the developer standpoint here in Detroit and from the African American developer standpoint.

I think for a lot of people, this is a theoretical problem, for you it's a very everyday practical one.

Talk about what that looks like.

- Yeah, so I think there are real challenges.

I mean, I think for any developer, any small business, any startup access to capital and finding those sources is an everyday thing.

When you're black and brown in the real estate space, those challenges become exponentially greater.

And so that's what we fight through every day.

Yes, it's the same challenge that everyone else faces on cost of construction and escalating, getting through city processes, how do you manage all the compliance necessary and all the environment and the changing political wins that we all have to navigate through the different communities spheres.

But if you can solve all that, when you're black and brown, or if you're black development in Detroit, you still gotta figure out how to find that capital.

And just 'cause you have $250,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 to put into a deal.

That means all you have.

So that means you gotta risk your entire net worth, you're savings to try to do something great.

And we're trying to say, let's try to remove some of those historic and systemic barriers that have excluded us from the development process.

Let's make that a little bit easier, instead of you having to put your entire net worth will maybe continue half of that equity for you.

That gives you a different start launching pad, a different risk profile.

But also what is noticed is change what people think it's possible.

People are not thinking about one deal at a time, which is what we normally do 'cause that's all the money you have.

Now I think about one, two, three, four deals at a time, why?

Because they see this as a true access to capital that they can touch, they can get.

And if the deals make sense, the numbers work, they have a real viable shop.

- Yeah, what you were just saying about people having to risk just about everything they have to put a deal together, to get it done.

I hear that story over and over and over again from small African American developers in Detroit.

And when they talk about those numbers and what they mean to their business and what they mean in terms of, hey, am I ever gonna get this back?

Hey, how do I go and do the next thing?

I mean, there are so many reasons to not do that.

There are so many reasons that you would look at it and say, hey, you know what?

This isn't worth it, it really does begin to explain the slow pace and the slow growth that we've seen in this sector.

- And it also underscores why people are doing it though.

Because people believe in the long term viability of the CB Trade of Southeastern Michigan and the state as a whole.

And if you believe in the long term viability, your lens is a little longer.

You're not thinking about one, two year, three year flip in the single housing perspective.

You're thinking about how to rebuild communities and neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods take 100 years to develop right, at times.

So how do put the building blocks in place to allow that thriving to happen?

And the wonderful thing about the ebiara fund is that we instantly believe if you empower black and brown developers, that they're gonna be the ones who are gonna run into the communities to do those deals, to start reeding neighborhoods, rebuilding communities, and re-supporting them.

And we're already sitting that stunt to happen.

And we hope it's gonna continuously be a cycle that builds a neighborhood development.

- Yeah, Keona, you mentioned earlier that there are other kind of models for this approach around the country.

I wonder if there are other things that you see in other communities that we might be thinking about here as well, in terms of, again, bridging some of these gaps, making it easier for black and brown developers to participate in the environment here.

What else should we be thinking about?

- So one of the things that I'm gonna say is actually happening in our market is training of emerging or folks that are looking to become developers that are in some realm of real estate as a whole.

And so, certainly wanna acknowledge partnership in everything that we do.

And Capital Impact Partners is another community development financial institution that is really focused on people of color from a developer perspective of lifting them up.

And they have a formal training program that is really geared towards creating a platform for the academics of, what does it mean to be a developer?

How do you analyze the financials so forth so on, such that a number of folks are either architects or contractors or single family home developers and taking it up to the next level and entering into commercial development.

And so that's really created a platform for developers to enter into this program or be supported by investing choice traditional products, right?

So there's a training program, they get coaching afterwards.

They get access to capital from Capital Impacts perspective.

But then also as a partner of ours, we also are financing a number of those developments, trying to assist them as they build their portfolio, build their business and Rod and I both participated in that program, from a coaching and teaching perspective, sharing our knowledge and experience from the various perspective.

So we live the theory of let somebody's light, let somebody light their light from your own or your candle.

And so I think that that's a unique component to what we have in the City of Detroit.

Again, we're trying to take that holistic approach, access to capital that helps you build your business, access to capital for your project, coaching, teaching, mentorship.

We are really deeply rooted and believe in this.

And so we're putting everything behind it in order to support the black and brown community as they help us build a stronger, better Detroit.

- That'll do it for us this week, thanks for watching.

And you can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can connect with us anytime on Facebook and on Twitter, take care, and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] From Delta Faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia &Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Narrator 1] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of American Black Journal in covering African American history, culture and politics.

The DTE Foundation and American Black Journal partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you, thank you.

(bright upbeat music)