Innovation and Resilience

BY CAROLINA VALENTI

Life in New Hampshire is amazing! We have endless opportunities for outdoor activities, low taxes, great schools and beautiful views. There are plenty of reasons why people would want to move and raise their families here.

With so many advantages, it is not surprising that minorities living in the Granite State are also attracted to starting new business ventures. Restaurants, fitness studios, cleaning companies, fashion-designing services and tattoo parlors are but a few of the many services provided by people of color.

Following a passion and starting a business comes with perks like choosing your industry, your working hours, and becoming the boss, but there is also a whole set of challenges: For entrepreneurs who happen to possess a different skin color, or maybe an accent, the obstacles for success go beyond the standard.

“When you are not a member of the majority population, you are excluded automatically from a lot of the girls’ and boys’ clubs.” – Dwight Davis,owner of Senior Helpers

Dwight Davis, a former NBA player who relocated to the state to be with his wife, Gayle, recognizes that his status as a public figure contributed to the success of his company, Senior Helpers, an initiative that provides in-home care to the elderly and educational resources to their families. Being married to a longtime New Hampshire resident also assisted in his transition to the state. “I moved to New Hampshire in 2004. Being a former basketball player, I have always been involved in working with youth. I visited schools and colleges. I don’t want to minimize the advantage that I had, but having said that, there were still challenges, I also have friends who have faced serious obstacles. One of them is that when you are not a member of the majority population, you are excluded automatically from a lot of the girls’ and boys’ clubs,” said the NBA alumnus.

Support and Advocacy

The increasing need for networking opportunities is one reason why Wildolfo “Will” Arvelo, former director of the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development and newly appointed executive director of Cross Roads House in Portsmouth, decided to lead the initiative to create a minority-owned business group sponsored by the state.

The organization known as BAPOC-NH (Business Alliance for People of Color) started informal operations back in 2020, and became an official nonprofit organization beginning in August 2021. As a Puerto Rican immigrant, the cause of advancing minorities’ success is close to Arvelo’s heart.

“There are all these people all over the state in these small communities not speaking to each other and not connecting, not networking. People have been looking for these spaces, but nobody had started it until I did,” said Arvelo.

Besides creating a support mechanism among members of minority groups, this BIPOC group seeks to address financial challenges that took the spotlight as a consequence of the Covid-19 crisis.

Addressing the Financial Struggle

Some of the businesses that were hit the hardest by last year’s events are in the food industry and the exercise and fitness field. One of those entrepreneurs who witnessed and endured the magnitude of the limited financial resources is Ashley Iwanicki, founder of The Collective Studios, a fitness space that seeks to create an inclusive environment where members can get a whole physical and mental experience.

Iwanicki, who is of Persian descent, was inspired by her years living in cities like New York, San Diego and L.A., as well as her past working experiences in different industries. When she and her husband decided to move back to New England, their idea was to run a place where people could work out in a welcoming environment. Her innovative business plan caught the attention of banks and soon she received backing to develop that vision.

“This group really came out of the fact that, during the Covid crisis, the federal programs and even the state programs were not reaching out to underserved communities.” – Will Arvelo, BAPOC-NH organizer

“We signed our lease for the studio in March 2020, just a few days shy of the weekend when everything started shutting down and the world went into quarantine. I was working with a bank, and this whole time the bank was reassuring me I had nothing to worry about. One day, when I was expecting to receive a phone call from my lender, she told me the bank had decided to close lending to all new clients. Basically, our funding was taken away at the last minute,” she recalled.

“I proceeded to try to pitch anyone who would listen: a bank, a credit union, private equity, anyone who would take my call. I contacted over 40 lenders, but they were not lending, especially to fitness businesses. It took me all of 2020 to find an institution that had the confidence and the tolerance to be able to lend to us,” she said.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, banks maintained tight lending standards during the last year. The main source of financial relief for small businesses during those months was the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but even with federal assistance in place, the resources were often not distributed among those who needed them the most.

“This group really came out of the fact that during the Covid crisis, the federal programs and even the state programs were not reaching out to underserved communities. They were not reaching out to small businesses owned by people of color. A number of times there is a disconnect between, for example, banking programs that are sort of mainstream and the owners of these businesses,” said Arvelo. “They are not necessarily tied into this process; they don’t understand it.”

In spite of the uncertainty, Iwanicki’s story is one of resilience and final reward. The Collective Studios’ big opening took place in July 2021, after months of financial hardship and undeniable perseverance.

“It took me all of 2020 to find an institution that had the confidence and the tolerance to be able to lend to us.” – Ashley Iwanicki, founderof The Collective Studios

With the creation of BAPOC-NH, Arvelo hopes there will be more information available to minority business owners in terms of financial support programs. There are also ongoing conversations taking place between entrepreneurs of color and private lenders in order to improve the services offered to this population.

“We want to create a fair playing field for everyone, that’s our preoccupation,” said Arvelo. “We have been meeting over the past year and engaging with a whole series of banks. We brought them to have a conversation about some of the challenges that these business owners have. Especially during the Covid crisis, banks were not really being attentive to their needs. Business owners felt they were being discriminated against. I don’t think it was intentional, but banks don’t know what they don’t know. These meetings helped them understand these challenges.”

Overcoming the Differences

Lenders are not the only ones who have a hard time seeing past the differences. In fact, discrimination is a term that lingers in the daily life of immigrants and minorities in general. Another challenge of BAPOC-NH is becoming an instrument to normalize this population by incorporating minorities into the political and social conversation in the state.

“I am Latino, so I have an interest in figuring out how we can diversify our population, because New Hampshire is one of two states where we have more deaths than births. So how do we replenish our workforce? We can’t just do it with our native population; we have to find ways to import people to the state,” said Arvelo.

As of July 2019, almost 90% of New Hampshire residents identified as being of the white race alone (not Hispanic), so it’s not surprising that entrepreneurs of color feel they have to go the extra mile to attract potential customers.

“Our ears are trained to listen to people who sound like us. If you throw somebody into the mix that you can’t understand, and they look different, then you suddenly think, ‘I’m done, I’m not going to try it,’” said Gayle Davis, co-owner of Senior Helpers.

How do you respond to rejection when people are uncomfortable with who you are? The answer seems to be education.

There is an undeniable movement within corporate America seeking to elevate the voice of minorities in the different industries. Today it is possible to participate in workshops, seminars, or even to receive counseling aimed at achieving a more inclusive work environment. Some big players are making diversity training mandatory.

Most importantly, a large portion of these educational resources is being offered by minorities. That is the case for Jermaine Moore, a member of BAPOC-NH who provides consulting in diversity and inclusion to large businesses across different industries through his company, The Mars Hill Group.

“Since George Floyd last year, there has been significant interest in having these difficult conversations. I’m hosting and facilitating roundtables in which we can talk about this, and try to model what civil discourse can look like. Right now, if you look at our country, if you look at politics, people are not talking to one another, no one is listening. So I try to create this dialogue and there is a hunger for that,” said Moore.

“For the past year and a half, I’ve noticed that companies have gained some courage to address these issues. I think that during the last year, even up until now, even the folks that are opposed to this work have been quiet. What I’m noticing now is that companies are trying to create change, and as opposition rises, the voices of that opposition are a little bit louder,” said Moore. “They started to reflect what we are seeing in the country as a whole. Before, everyone was on the same page. I’m trying to prepare organizations to expect that level of opposition and think now about how they are going to address it. It takes strong leadership for companies to do what needs to be done.”

According to Moore, one of the biggest challenges when it comes to normalizing the inclusion and diversity conversation in places like New Hampshire lies in the fact that there is no acknowledgment that a real issue exists.

“Often in this area [New England], we live in a little bit of a bubble. People think that some of these issues that the country is struggling with are not happening here. They think about Minneapolis or California, so initially, the challenge I find is to make people aware that there are very real issues even in Maine or New Hampshire. They may express themselves a little bit differently, but these same attitudes and beliefs are prevalent here,” he said. “The lack of diversity has caused people not to confront some of their attitudes or beliefs. They just don’t think they have to, they are not exposed to it, but the reality is that the demographics are changing. We are becoming a little bit more diverse, so attitudes have to change along with our population.”

His advice for minority business owners competing for a share of the customers in a state like New Hampshire, where their chances of success are lower than in other places in the country, is to become as visible as possible. The only way to make people feel comfortable around you is by having them get used to your presence. Participating in public activities, belonging to a civic organization, volunteering for events, etc., are some ways to blend into a society. At the same time, acceptance of all beliefs, races, colors and accents is the foundation of peace.

“As we become more diverse, more inclusive, the idea is not to leave anyone out. We all have a part to play, we all can thrive. This doesn’t just benefit people of color, it benefits all of us. It’s good for all us, even if you don’t identify that way,” said Moore.