Cher’Don Reynolds wears her heart on her sleeve, and her business dangling from her ears.
Reynolds, CEO and founder of Stockbridge-based printing company She Prints It, often wears large hoop earrings that spell her business name in a repeating loop.
“It creates conversation,” Reynolds told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “because now, once you’re intrigued by my earrings, we can now have a conversation: ‘Oh, this is my company, this is what we do.’”
It’s an example of what she has coined the “ROI of free,” which she described as the return on investment from free promotional products, like the ones she prints.
Generating more attention and sales is particularly important for her main customer base, Black women small business owners, particularly as large corporations like McDonald’s and Walmart recently announced they would be stepping back from their equity commitments. Just 3% of Black women can sustain their business beyond five years, according to the Harvard Business Review, compared to 7% of white women, who start businesses at lower rates than their Black peers.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
These types of disparities were among the reasons racial justice protesters in 2020 were clamoring for change. Corporations seemed to have heard them, committing $340 billion to racial equity initiatives between 2020 and 2022, according to a McKinsey analysis.
But new research has found that a majority of Black women business owners didn’t see a cent of those commitments, the support of their businesses was short-lived and some are now worse off financially than before 2020.
The research was conducted by Nikki Porcher, founder of business support organization Buy from a Black Woman, and Nantale Muwonge, founder of Black Girl PR. They saw all these promises made in 2020, but said there was very little implementation. Now, they’ve seen corporations pull back from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
On Monday, McDonald’s said in a statement it would no longer set representation goals and was getting rid of its DEI pledge for suppliers after it looked at shareholder proposals and “assessed the shifting legal landscape” in light of the Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action in college admissions.
But disparities remain. In 2023, Black-founded startups received less than 0.5% of the $140 billion in venture capital invested into American startups, according to data firm Crunchbase. In 2022, female founders of color received just 0.39% of all venture capital investments, according to the Atlanta venture firm Fearless Fund.
Fearless was sued in 2023 over a grant program it ran for Black women business owners, one of the first such suits that has since caused a chilling effect on DEI programs. A group founded by a conservative activist accused the VC firm of racial discrimination. Fearless agreed to end the program in September to settle the lawsuit.
“When 2020 came, we saw all of these initiatives that wanted to … help Black businesses,” Porcher said. “All this stuff started because they saw the need, and then, I guess the need is still here, but they’re not here.”
She and Muwonge surveyed 199 Black women business owners, held roundtables and conducted a handful of individual interviews. Nearly 82% of the Black women business owners they studied did not receive any support or funding from the corporate initiatives launched in 2020.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reynolds of She Prints It was in the small percentage of companies for which 2020 was a boon for business. She got some large clients like hotel chain IHG and utilities provider Southern Company that she still works with. From 2019 to 2022, she says her revenue grew about 70%.
But in 2024, a corporate client who had been a steady customer disappeared after November’s presidential election. On Dec. 22, President-elect Donald Trump said he will ban DEI initiatives in the private sector.
“People are so concerned about the term diversity, they’re moving to discrimination,” she said.
Reynolds thinks if companies that didn’t have issues with her service are now choosing not to do business with her “because the tool that introduced you to me has been demonized or (is) no longer necessary,” it’s discrimination because of her race and, potentially, gender.
“I don’t know what 2025 will hold,” she said, “but if we’re not having some honest conversations about replacing diversity with discrimination, we’re going to end up in a very slippery slope.”
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
More than 64% have not seen the same level of support for their business as they’d seen during the 2020 uprising. That’s the case for Ariel Young, founder of Warner Robins-based Copper and Brass Paper Goods. Young started the company in 2018 and sells stationery that she says celebrates Black women’s joy.
In 2020, her business took off. She sold 30,000 greeting cards to a retail chain, was featured in magazines like Essence and made more money than she ever had before. In 2019, she estimates she brought in about $50,000, then that grew to $250,000 a year in 2020 and 2021.
But then things started to change.
“I think it seemed like when nothing was going on that was causing an uprising, when the politics weren’t there, it just felt like everyone was pulling back,” Young said. “You could just see the sales slowly declining, the opportunities declining.” Buyers for retailers — who had previously been emailing her constantly — suddenly stopped responding to her messages.
In 2024, she was on track to make less money than she did in 2019. 2025 is make-or-break — if sales don’t pick up, Young thinks she’ll have to close her business.
And she’s not alone. The researchers found that 75% of the business owners they studied were concerned about being able to cover bills for their basic, personal and business needs.
“It brings tears to my eyes to think of shutting it down,” Young said, “because of the amount of work, energy, love, everything I poured into it.”
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