Essence Magazine:
When Xochitl Carmona began looking for grant opportunities specifically for BIPOC content creators like her, they were few and far between. But then she ran across IFundWomen of Color (IFund).
An initiative co-founded by the body care company Caress, IFund was designed to help WOC entrepreneurs gain access to education and funding to scale their businesses.
Unlike other grant programs she’d applied to, Carmona found IFund was tailored just for women like her.
“It was very much for women, very opposite of the other grant application I’d completed in the past,” Carmona told ESSENCE. “It felt like they were speaking directly to Latina founders like me and that’s something I hadn’t seen before.”
Carmona’s experience is like many other Latinx founders.
2021 data from Crunchbase shows that US startups led by Latinx founders got just 2.1 percent of VC funding in 2021 that year. That’s only a slight increase from 2018’s 1.8%.
This is disparate funding is particularly interesting since the Latinx community was responsible for approximately 50% of new small business growth in the last 10 years and is expected to make up 78% of the net workforce increase from 2020–2030.
Much like Carmona, this is something that Denise Foley, Sandra Burciaga Olinger, Sandra Diaz, Xochitl Carmona and Veronica Pesantes are frustratingly aware of.
Also recipients of the IFund grant, they shared with ESSENCE the initiative was a refreshingly targeted program that made them feel seen in a world that often overlooks their talent.
“I never saw myself represented in history books and art history books,” said Diaz, who is of Colombian descent. “It was only Frieda Cahlo and props to her. But I know that are so many Latin artists, Latin women artists that were not covered.”
Diaz said she founded her stationary company Lucia Diaz, to amplify representation in space and empower through creating artwork celebrating every Latina.
Similarly, Denise Foley founded her body positive swimwear company Sunset Vibes after recognizing the need for inclusive apparel brands, particularly led by Latinx women. Before pivoting to entrepreneurship, Foley worked in tech for more than 15 years and experienced firsthand how a lack of diversity deeply affected how important funding decisions were made.
“There’s a lot of minorities in workplaces at director levels, maybe at SVP levels, but when you break past that, it’s white men of a certain age group,” Foley told ESSENCE. “A lot of times they’re the ones making the ultimate decision. And I know these very large companies are doing their best to boost diversity and inclusion, but there is so much work left to be done.”
Pesantes, who owns the sustainable textiles brand The Onikas says true representation can only be achieved when a larger problem is tackled.
“America has a categorical issue,” she told ESSENCE. “My family came here when I was five years old from Ecuador and settled in Texas. The only categories for Latinas back then were White or Mexican. Nobody understoodthere was anything else. And when I’d share that I’m from Ecuador, people would ask ‘is that in Africa? Is that in Spain?’ I mean, complete and utter ignorance, and that’s when I was younger, but it really hasn’t stopped. So I think in general, the United States, has a problem with identity and categorization.”
Now a resident in the very Latinx-dense Miami area, Pesantes says that even there, Latinx identity is misunderstood.
“Miami is very, very, very Latino, and there’s still people that don’t understand. ‘You’re Hispanic? You’re Spanish?’ They have no idea and the bias and subsequent cultural misappropriation are rampant in business. That’s culturally specific grant opportunities like this one is s important.”
Sandra Burciaga Olinger, owner of the independent music platform Grimy Goods shared that although she wishes there were more diverse funding opportunities available, IFund is a step in a positive direction.
“I feel like I have a community behind me that’s pushing me forward,” she told ESSENCE. “And there’s other people, too, that are speaking up and we kind of vibe off each other and help each other too. I think in the past {Latinx founders like me} were intimidated or scared to aim for growth opportunities like these but we have no reason to feel that way. We’re here and we deserve to be seen.”
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