Building a Legacy Through Impact with Betty Francisco
Juliette talks to Betty Francisco, who is a business executive, impact investor, and community leader. Betty is also known as a powerful convener and changemaker, unapologetic about creating visibility for Latinx and POC leaders. They explore their similar backgrounds and Betty's efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap through her work with Boston Impact Initiative Fund.
They dive deep into what makes the social impact fund unique and the importance of allyship in achieving goals. Betty defines allyship as those with privilege and influence using their power to support those who don't have it. This can be done through personal relationships or by advocating for policy change within systems.
As a person of color, Betty occupies an important role in the capital access stack and works towards creating a more sustainable, inclusive, and equitable economy. Listen to learn the importance of networking and leveraging one's intersecting identities to achieve success.
Highlights
12:50 - The focus is on investing in entrepreneurs of color, entrepreneurs that support communities of color, in order to close the racial wealth divide. What makes BII unique is that we use the whole spectrum of capital. So, we call that integrated capital.
18:52 - I started getting involved in a lot of coalition work to advocate for funding or policy change that could directly support more businesses owned by people of color that weren't getting access to the COVID relief as an example. What I saw was this tremendous outpouring of support.
20:09 - I would say that allyship doesn't always have to come from people in privilege, but it can also come from organizations that are in deep alignment on our values and goals. So, it's that shared purpose around building economic power, political power in our commonwealth, that also brought us together as allies.
24:26 - One of the things that I think is important to highlight, especially when we talk about influence and leaving a legacy, is one of the things that I'm doing now, transitioning from being a lawyer to now a fund manager. It's really important for our youth to see that there are career paths that are non-traditional. Like we always hear lawyer, doctor, the traditional positions that our immigrant parents said those are the ones you must go into, but they never quite say you should go be a fund manager.
Contact
Juliette Mayers
Inspiration Zone Newsletter Sign-Up
Betty Francisco
Eastern Bank
This episode is brought to you by Eastern Bank, the largest commercial bank headquartered in MA.
