2024 Year in Review
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This upcoming year, we’re doubling down on growth, championing our team, building a stronger foundation, and strengthening community connections. With new investors, skilled volunteers, and expanded access to capital for entrepreneurs, we’re driving bold change!
Our 2024 Impact
As we celebrate 2024’s wins and plan for 2025, we’re reminded: meaningful change starts with purposeful action.
Building Relationships that Spark
Change Across 15 Cities
Cities
Entrepreneurs
Connections
In 2024, we were thrilled to partner with Capital One to bring the Creating Conscious Collisions initiative to life! Together, we traveled to 15 cities, connecting investors, allies, champions, policymakers, and business executives with 71 incredible founders across the nation. Each city brought its own unique flavor, and we are so proud to have supported founders while fostering meaningful connections that truly make a difference.
This year alone, we’ve sparked over 3,500 connections! At IFEL, we know that relationships are everything—in business and in life. To our amazing community, thank you for showing up, opening doors, and supporting these visionary founders. Together, we’re creating a brighter, more inclusive entrepreneurial landscape. Let’s keep the momentum going!
Small Business Capacity Building Reaches a New High
We are thrilled to announce that in 2024, we empowered over 10,000 entrepreneurs through our dynamic programs and initiatives! From live Ask the Expert sessions to Success Circles providing guidance in legal, financial management, marketing, operations, and business planning, the year was full of meaningful impact.
This year, we introduced new opportunities like Coffee and Connections, a networking event where entrepreneurs received real-time answers to their pressing questions. We also sent entrepreneurs to ZingTrain’s renowned business training and leadership development program. Every effort—whether it was a phone call, text message, site visit, or confidence boost—was geared toward ensuring entrepreneurs fully leveraged the resources available to fuel their success.
None of this would have been possible without our incredible IFEL team, extraordinary volunteer experts, and key collaborators like the Verizon Foundation. Together, we created a powerful ripple effect, opening doors and inspiring growth.
We’re proud to be part of a movement where entrepreneurs are equipped with the tools, support, and connections they need to thrive. Here’s to celebrating progress and building a brighter future for all!
Experts Provided $1 Million in Capital Building Support
IFEL is tackling the issue of access to capital and skillsets head-on. Through Success Circles, we’re working to overcome the legacy of historical exclusion. This year, so many have joined us in addressing this problem from a different angle by sharing their expertise—helping to overcome the capital and capacity constraints while also learning from the valuable lessons that our small business owners have to teach. Teaming up with fellow change-makers like Verizon, KPMG, EisnerAmper, Justworks, Sullivan, and additional corporations, legal partners and individual business experts across the country, helped us to host:
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175+ individual Success Circles collaborations
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75 Small Business Hackathon events
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144 Ask the Expert webinars
IFEL’s Small Businesses Need Us initiative gives corporate volunteers an opportunity to offer their time, skills, and expertise to help small businesses thrive. They are also intent on learning from small business owners. Through this initiative, our volunteers have provided business-critical, capacity-building support directly to small business owners and entrepreneurs. The IFEL team, volunteers and experts remind us of the transformative power of collaboration and the lasting impact it has on our business owners.
Pipelines and Payoffs: How IFEL Connects Investors & Founders
In 2024, Investor Inclusion made tremendous strides enhancing the relationship capital of the investors we serve. As part of our Creating Conscious Collisions tour events, we traveled to 15 cities where we introduced over 130 investors to 71 founders. When coupled with our Founder and Crowdfunding Showcases, we enabled 237 investors to build relationships with founders from the IFEL community and broaden their investment pipelines.
The investor inclusion team also expanded awareness of angel investing thereby growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem. IFEL sponsored the Black Future House at SXSW, the Black Wealth Summit and the Women in Pharma Conference, enabling us to magnify our awareness building campaign and encourage over 300 people to explore angel investing. Through our Signature Pipeline Angels training program and our awareness building program, the Making of Black Angels, we introduced 92 people to the world of angel investing. Through our relationship capital and training activities, investors made the connections that inspired them to invest $348,000 across 19 companies..
