There’s a concept of the Matthew Effect which uses math to illustrate what folks have lamented about for thousands of years – the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Take tech for example – the rich and poor often have different problems, but because it’s more profitable to solve problems for the wealthy a disproportionate share of tech innovation focuses on solving problems for the affluent. However, it doesn’t have to be this way – and we have been blown away by the thousands of members of our community who have devoted their lives through their businesses, organizations and art to serve the underserved.

Lisa Riznikove

I’ll never forget the day we decided to create Foodocracy. We were considering following our passion in food and creating a product to sell so we went to the Fancy Food Show, the biggest trade of the year. We stood there on a massive convention floor in the Marconi Center in San Francisco looking at thousands of food stalls filled with eager food startups and you know what we realized? It was mostly white men and most controlled by a handful of large corporations. Women and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), not to mention LGBTQ farmers and creators face systemic racism in everything from funding to education. Read more>>

Claire Holmes

Unfortunately, the cards are stacked against working moms. Though women have made great gains in workforce representation, burnout is still on the rise – and a huge debilitating factor for women with both families and careers they love. 97% of millennial moms feel burned out by motherhood (at least some of the time).* 89% of mothers feel unsupported by society.* Read more>>

Chantelle Rodriguez

I’ve been working with underserved communities my entire career starting with after-school care programs dating as far back as 2005. Throughout my seventeen year career as a teaching artist I’ve taught at many different schools in a variety of communities and I’ve always preferred working with underserved or “at-risk” youth. In 2021 I was awarded a small grant which allowed me to run my own summer programming free for the community, for the first time. Read more>>

Taylor Reedy

I’m extremely dedicated to serving my community. I’ve had my own non-profit organization that works towards building the community while uplifting young black women. I’ve coordinated back to school drives, prom giveaways, clothing and canned food drives, feeding the homeless, and working with churches and nursing homes. Read more>>

Sylvia Green

Almost 3yrs ago I decided to launch my radio station. It was very important to me that we helped independent artists and entrepreneurs as much as possible. Our main focus at ON BLAST RADIO, LLC is aiding indie artist and entrepreneurs in sharing their stories, talents, services, etc with the world. These individuals deserve proper acknowledgement and accolades. But not only do we aid them is getting their stories heard we also aid in guiding and teaching through different segments on our platform. Read more>>

Ash Cintas

As former small and midsize businesses (SMB) and startup executives, we have personally experienced the pain points our SMB colleagues experience daily. We witnessed the huge gap in success determine not by the quality of products, but by how much money SMBs can spend marketing online. When I started my first company 15 years ago, sellers were limited to Etsy and Amazon; shockingly, retail platforms haven’t changed much since then. Read more>>