Pandemic stories: Meet advocate for Black businesses Elisse Douglass
This is the fourth installment of my Pandemic Stories series elevating the stories of women during this pandemic. Today, meet Elisse Douglass, whose initial effort at raising $5,000 to support local Black business owners during the pandemic turned into the Oakland Black Business Fund (OBBF), a $1 billion investment fund to help Black entrepreneurs nationwide survive the pandemic’s economic impact. Elisse runs the fund with partner Trevor Parham, and is also a real estate developer, investor, and entrepreneur. In our email Q&A, she shares what OBBF has been able to accomplish so far, what daily life looks like for her, and how she stays motivated to lead during these difficult times.
“How can I orient my energy and resources to carve a path that makes this make sense for me and my community?”
- Elisse Douglass
How has the pandemic affected you most directly? What are the biggest impacts you've personally experienced?
I’ve been deeply affected by the dual tragedies of the pandemic, which has disproportionately affected Black and poor people, and the continued killing of Black people by systems meant to protect us—George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many more. The pandemic has forced me to sit with myself and my feelings about this country and realign my priorities, and has given me perspective on where my life is going.
Simultaneously, the movement for Black Lives continues to inspire me to look at my individual role and potential to make an impact. I’ve found myself frequently asking the questions, “How am I going to navigate through this chaos? How can I orient my energy and resources to carve a path that makes this make sense for me and my community?” I’ve really been forced to do a healthy critique of my default expectations for my life and the impact I want to make.
Tell us about the moment that you had the idea for the Oakland Black Business Fund. What do you think made you decide to take action, rather than simply observing the problem?
The OBBF was born simply from the spirit of seeing a problem, understanding that problem intimately, and doing something to fix it. Through my work with Black businesses, I know that our entrepreneurs are struggling from immediate COVID impacts, and, more broadly, historic lack of access to capital and general resources for growth. As a real estate developer, I know that traditional retail and place-based business models no longer work, and that every day, our physical spaces not only look less and less like our surrounding communities, but also, they are also getting further and further from our control. This means that the opportunity promised by real estate investment and development can’t translate into the Black community without intentional intervention combining both significant resources and scale.
On the more promising side, I also know that Black women are starting more businesses faster than any other demographic in this country so there is tremendous innovation and resiliency happening in our community everyday. I believe strongly that there is an incredible and critically needed opportunity for Black entrepreneurship to lead us all into a new economic future.
So as a Black woman, real estate developer, business investor, and entrepreneur myself, the dichotomy was less, “take action vs. observe,” and more, “take action or lose everything we have already fought so hard for.” Defeat is never really an option. Given my experience, as well as that of my team—who are all Black entrepreneurs, community leaders and activists—I know that we’re uniquely qualified to both reimagine what a solution can be and to make that future happen.
Why do you think your initial GoFundMe went viral, and you ended up raising so much more funding than you set out to? What factors contributed to this incredible outcome?
I don’t t know! I’ve never even used GoFundMe and am a classic introvert, so going out publicly in front of things is never really in my comfort zone. I think people were very responsive to the honesty and simplicity of the request—it’s just me, a person you may know or your friend might know, with a modest goal in direct response to something I’m seeing right outside my front door. I also think it’s a testament to my very action'-oriented and passionate network, who all mobilized support and trusted me, based on my role in this community, to get this done. It was a natural fit to transition that energy into a more sustainable platform and I felt empowered to tackle the larger crisis our community is facing by the support of those initial backers.
Still thinking of Oakland Black Business Fund, what has been the most satisfying outcome you've seen so far? And what goal is next on the horizon?
Elisse with Trevor Parham. They are both co-founders and general managers of the Oakland Black Business Fund.
I am so excited and inspired by the entrepreneurs reaching out to share their really big dreams and ideas. So often, when we think about Black businesses, we automatically think about small businesses—”mom and pops.” There’s really no reason Black businesses have to remain small along any dimension, particularly when they have real resources to grow and scale in culturally appropriate ways without extraction. We have some “moms and pops” that we are working with, and they are some of the most innovative and creative people that I have ever met; they deserve every possible resource to get to where they are trying to go, not just for themselves, but for the value that brings the whole Black community.
Our platform is designed to help folks get there. We are fundraising for our immediate goal, which is $10m for grant funding to stabilize the Oakland Black Business community, to make sure 41 percent of our Black businesses don’t close, as they did in the 2008 recession. On the impact investing side, we are recruiting LPs and individuals really interested in providing innovative funding this community for our first round of investments.
Paint a picture for us of what your daily life looks like these days. For example, what can you see or hear out your window right now? What is your daily routine, if you have one?
I’m a morning person now! I’m up around 6, depending on the time zone, and start with making a to-do list across my real estate work, fund work, and personal needs. That helps me stay focused and not get overwhelmed by the sheer scale of what we are trying to accomplish every day. I start with a run and/ or yoga to clear my head and calm anxiety. That sounds ambitious, but some days my “run” is just a 15 minute walk, and “yoga” is just me rolling around on my living room floor!
Doing so much in the morning lets me cheat and feel like I have extra hours in the day. I try do all my most challenging work before 9am so I can spend most of the day focused on my task list. Now that we’re in quarantine, that looks a lot like me walking laps around my apartment talking, texting, and writing emails on my phone. I’m in constant contact with both my real estate and fund teams so we can stay responsive, dynamic, and flexible to what’s happening in the community. At night I sync with the Fund team first, then work on our strategic priorities and deal flow. I journal and try to get some daydreaming or talking to friends and family in before bed to help me relax and stay grounded for sleep
Are you quarantining alone, or with others? What benefits do you see in your situation, and what's hard about it?
I have mostly been in my apartment in Oakland, by myself, driving my houseplants crazy. It was very lonely dealing with so much uncertainty and chaos by myself. I went to Philadelphia for a couple weeks to help out my parents, and that was a real change. I loved the nearly daily yoga, family interaction, and all the outside nature time.
Is it hard to stay motivated to lead during these difficult times? If so, what helps you keep going?
Personally, I think I’m vulnerable to believing the “my dream is too big” myth and to having imposter syndrome, both of which can become demotivating. My dream runs counter to a society that constantly tells us implicitly and by inaction that it’s not worth investing in Black women, that Black businesses can’t scale, and that economic empowerment is a false hope. Despite what I know, what I’ve done, and what I see right in front of me, as a Black woman in an overwhelmingly white male industry, I personally face rejection and bias every day. It is crushing when my work, abilities, and capacity for impact are constantly underestimated and unvalued. The fight to not internalize that and to redefine what entrepreneurship looks like for me is exhausting.
My personal motivation comes from every day reminding myself that I am in control of my life and my impact; I carry a legacy of several generations of Black women who took control of theirs against all odds. I am doing this work now, I have been doing this work throughout my whole career, and together with my team, we have built a platform that will ensure that this work can continue in the future. As an organization, the businesses we work with and the people who support us keep us going, and we are very grateful for it.
(Huge shout-out to writer Rachel Sarah, who introduced me to Elisse and suggested I interview her. Rachel’s next book, Girl Warriors, How 25 Young Activists are Saving the Earth, comes out in April 2021.)
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