BGV is a social enterprise dedicated to finding creative solutions to dissolve the race and gender gap in access to capital. Our mission is to expose women of color to economic independence via empowerment and entrepreneurship by developing initiatives in micro-finance, business development and community building. BGV was founded in August 2016 by serial entrepreneur, artist and author, Omi Bell.
The idea felt random and simple, “Women are not getting access to capital for their businesses? Well let’s get them access to capital for their businesses,” Omi proclaims. She created a Meetup.com group and within a couple weeks the membership went from 0 to 150 and kept climbing. Shelly launched the first event called “Eat, Pitch, Vote” with the simple idea to bring women of color (WOC) together to discuss entrepreneurship, partnership, and support through collective economics. About 30 women were in attendance and ready to support each other with the intent of growing their businesses. Since then, visibility has grown rapidly “Eat, Pitch, Vote” is now “Boss Up.” Event attendance has grown from 30 to over 50 people per event. The number of applications received has grown from 4 to over 40 for each event. Historically, African Americans have been finding creative ways to fund themselves for decades. The “Boss Up” Pitch Competition is patterned after what has been known in African American culture as a “rent party.” In the early 1920’s over 200, 000 negroes migrated to Harlem for job opportunities. Due to discriminatory rental rates it became challenging to pay the rent. Harlemnites would charge an admission fee, invite musicians to play and raise the money to pay the rent with basement parties.
