My condolences: Boston Celtics HC (Joe Mazzulla) and one year old baby die in car crash…..
As Celtics superstar Jaylen Brown launches a nonprofit whose mission is to close the racial wealth gap in and around Boston, existing incubators and funders with a similar focus are welcoming the high-profile spotlight he brings to this arena.
Brown’s new nonprofit, called Boston Xchange (BXC), plans to back entrepreneurs of color in the creative economy from design and music to fashion and the culinary arts.
“You have a very prominent athlete, who is committed to his local community.
They’re asking the right people the right questions around making sure that it’s not duplicative and that (the) efforts are working with existing programming here,” said Glynn Lloyd, who runs Mill Cities Community Investments in Lawrence, a Black-led community development finance institution.
Nearly a decade ago the Boston Federal Reserve Bank reported that the median net worth of non-immigrant Black households in Greater Boston was just $8. One avenue to improve that dismal figure, advocates have long argued, is entrepreneurialism.
That’s been challenging in Massachusetts. Black and Latino people comprise more than a fifth of the state’s population but owned just over 3% of businesses with employees in 2018 — less than half the national rate of Black and Latino business ownership, according to a U.S. Census survey of entrepreneurs.
Lloyd said recent events raised awareness of the challenges facing entrepreneurs of color, from the Black Lives Matter movement after the killing of George Floyd to the COVID pandemic which disproportionately hit communities of color and minority business owners.
