digitalundivided X The Nasdaq Foundation’s InvestHER attendees
Lyvonne Proverbs Briggs and Jewel Burks Solomon traveled different career paths. Briggs is an Emmy-award-winning pastor lovingly known as “Paster Bae,” she is also a spiritualist, poet, writer, coach, and consultant. Solomon is a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist who served as the first head of Google for Startups. The Nasdaq Foundation and digitalundivided brought together the two women, alongside scores of other Black and Latina men and women forInvestHER. InvestHER is a series held across American cities to provide valuable insights from founders and investors progressing in their investment and entrepreneurial journey.
Solomon and Briggs led different lives but had valuable insights to give and glean from the event.
digitalundivided X The Nasdaq Foundation’s InvestHER speaker Jewel Burks Solomon
Briggs knew she wanted to become an investor when she was deconstructing her generational trauma around money. She realized that when women of color have money, they can make money work for them.
“Dreaming is liberation,” Briggs explained. “And so, when you’re investing, you’re dreaming. You’re co-creating a new world and saying that instead of going towards things, places, and spaces that don’t surplus, how can we create a more accessible world for everyone using this resource?
Solomon shared Briggs’ sentiment, seeing the practical change investing in businesses of color can create. “It’s about generational wealth,” said Jewel Burks Solomon. “We can get early ownership into companies growing to be billion-dollar businesses. That is how we create generational wealth.”
digitalundivided X The Nasdaq Foundation’s InvestHER attendees
Events like digitalundivided X and The Nasdaq Foundation’s InvestHER series serve as epicenters of connectivity between those Black and Brown innovators and investors, paving the way towards building community and generational wealth. Last year, the series launched in NOLA at Essence Fest. Since then, the series appeared at Martha’s Vineyard and in Atlanta.
Initiatives to invest in diverse communities of investors and entrepreneurs are a growing movement. According to the 2019 McKinsey Institute Report, closing the racial wealth gap would add $1–1.5 trillion by 2028. Nonprofits like the Nasdaq Foundation’s social-impact investing organizations focus on empowering communities of color to generate, sustain, and build generational wealth by narrowing the racial wealth gap.
The Nasdaq Foundation’s goal is to reimagine investor engagement, change the face of tomorrow’s investors and create a more inclusive economy for all. By supporting the development of various investor engagements, the Nasdaq Foundation is creating pathways toward developing generational wealth in historically ostracized and underserved communities.
Jailan Griffiths (far left), President of the Nasdaq Foundation and Global Head of Purpose at Nasdaq at digitalundivided X The Nasdaq Foundation’s InvestHER
“We want to equip underrepresented communities and women of color with the knowledge and the financial knowledge and tools to support themselves best, empower that future, and ultimately, share in the wealth that capital markets can create,” said Jailan Griffiths, President of the Nasdaq Foundation and Global Head of Purpose at Nasdaq.
The partnership between digitalundivided and the Nasdaq Foundation was developed to drive inclusive growth and a more equitable ecosystem by finding ways to support the diversification and adaptation of investor engagement.
“Exponentially, it’s the best feeling,” says Jewel Burks Solomon. “That’s why I want more women to experience what happens when you write that first check. Give that person the opportunity to go and make their dreams come true.”