Doing their part for world peace 🕊️
By educating their consumers on
political conflict and harrowing social crises important to them, peace-making entrepreneurs are using their business success to spread awareness about urgent humanitarian issues facing many countries today.
|
Social entrepreneurship in the LGBTQ+ community 🏳️🌈
Happy Pride Month! By recognizing and celebrating LGBTQ+ change-makers, we are all contributing to a more just and inclusive society.
Homophobia, discrimination, hate crimes, poverty, isolation, addiction and unemployment are all very real obstacles that LGBTQ+ people face on a daily basis, in countries all around the world.
And entrepreneurs in this community face similar challenges: lack of diversity around them, subconscious biases, and even outright discrimination.
Many times, the difficult decision has to be made about "coming out": do they hide their identity at work or
risk losing an important partnership or investment because of it?
|
| Less than
1% of venture capital goes to LGBTQ+ founders
and
37% of
LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs choose not to "out" themselves to investors
| |
Thankfully, there are many initiatives striving to making positive impact for the LGBTQ+ community. Here are just a few examples:
- Micro Rainbow provides safe housing, access to education and employment, and social
inclusion activities to LGBTQI asylum seekers and refugees.
- TransTech is a co-working, co-learning incubator community dedicated to
empowering trans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer people and allies with practical, career-ready skills.
- Backstage Capital is a venture capital fund that invests in the very best
startup founders who identify as women, People of Color, or LGBTQ.
- Open Barbers is a London-based hairdressing service for all lengths, genders and sexualities
(queer and trans friendly).
- Venture Out is Canada’s first and largest tech & social impact nonprofit organization
connecting LGBTQA2S+ people in tech to career opportunities, mentors, and each other.
What can we do?
- Demand diversity in our places of work and social groups.
- Actively engage the voices of marginalized groups and regularly collect data to gauge which areas warrant improvements.
- Support LGBTQ+-owned businesses and nonprofits
- Not fall into the trap of "pink
capitalism"!
|
Kristina is our new Chief Financial Officer 💸
Camille: What did you like best about your Funding & Outreach internship with Stardust Startups? What did you learn?
Kristina: Through my research and outreach, it’s become clear to me that Stardust fills a really important gap in the impact investing ecosystem by funding promising projects at the earliest stages.
I think the most important thing I learned from my internship is that the passion and determination to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals is out there, but we at Stardust need to work to find those connections that can bring our impact to the next level.
C: What does the new CFO position mean for the Stardust team and what are some of the responsibilities it entails?
K: I feel that the creation of the Chief Financial Officer position signals Stardust’s dedication to progressing and expanding our impact. As CFO, my job is to increase Stardust’s visibility not just for its own sake, but for the purpose of attracting and creating relationships with donor partners who are passionate about the same things we
are.
C: What do you hope to accomplish within the next few months in your new position?
K: In the next few months, I’m looking forward to introducing myself to the existing Stardust community and building new relationships with people and organizations that are excited about the impact that Stardust can have. I believe that, in this role, the key to success will be building relationships and sharing the Stardust story.
So, don’t be surprised if you hear from me soon!
|
What's going on @ Stardust...
➫ Thanks to the support of our generous
impact partners we successfully completed the "Double Your Impact" challenge that turned $2.5K into $5K! ⚡Thanks to the Talbott family, Linda & Steve Josepho, Paul Starrs, Joan Randle, and Jean & Jim Moloney.
|
$5k for Stardust Startups will allow us to finance 2 microgrants for our current Impact Portfolio + operational funds for our nonprofit to keep going. If you'd still like to give, click here! 💛
➫ The team has thoroughly enjoyed having Natasha on as a
Funding & Outreach intern these past few months. She has been a huge help and will go on to do much more with all the skills she's gained. Congratulations 🌟Read her testimonial
here.
➫ Check out the newest additions to our YouTube channel: 5 short videos dedicated to different topics we discussed during our Givenar last
month. 🎬
|
Until next month!
Camille Babington
Senior Director of Operations, Communication
|
| Forward this email to your family and friends!
|
|
|
|
|
