Confident businesswoman smiling with arms crossed, embodying the essence of a successful female entrepreneur. Radiating leadership and ambition in a modern office setting By Kimberly Wilson ·Updated February 3, 2026 /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

Remember 2020? I know, I know… you’re probably still trying to forget. 

But, besides the obvious, it was also a time when every major corporation posted black squares on Instagram and made sweeping declarations about supporting Black-owned businesses. Just six short years ago, the world shifted, and with that shift, diversity and inclusion suddenly became an urgent priority, and boardrooms everywhere promised to do better.

Black women entrepreneurs remember too. And welp, according to a new survey from the New Voices Foundation, they’re still waiting for those promises to materialize into actual support.

The 2025 State of Entrepreneur Sentiment Survey confirms what many founders already suspected: the system isn’t built for them. Sad, isn’t it? More importantly, eighty percent of Black women entrepreneurs are scraping together their own savings to fund their businesses because only 17% have been able to secure bank loans. The rest are piecing together capital however they can, with 42% using credit cards and 39% are chasing