On January 22nd, VFA’s CEO, Amy Nelson, and members of our identity-based resource groups, VFA Rise, discussed VFA’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, from how that’s manifested in the Fellowship, to how the identities of the Fellows themselves have informed their Fellowship experience.
To kick off the conversation, Amy reaffirmed why Venture for America has doubled down on our efforts
“As an organization over the last couple of years, we have zeroed in on elevating diversity as a priority. And we’re doing this for reasons of social justice, because different groups particularly women and POC, as well as LGBTQ individuals tend to be underrepresented in technology and entrepreneurship. We think we are in a unique position to actually affect that in the future, because we find candidates when they are very early on in their career, when they are just starting to step into a set of new opportunities.
By taking a proactive stance and saying that we think that entrepreneurship is going to be better and our world is going to be better if diverse voices are creating and building businesses, we think that we are solving the next generation of problems.
It’s important that as an organization we meet the needs of the market, and so while there is a significant social justice component to why we care about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we also think frankly that it’s good business. Our country is becoming more diverse, and hopefully that continues to be the case, our business challenges are more diverse, our consumers are more diverse. If we don’t have people of a variety of different backgrounds in leadership, we are not going to be successful as a nation, and we’re going to lose the economic force, talent, and market share…we are doing the future a solid by developing leaders that come from all backgrounds.”
To hear more from Amy and watch the Q&A with our VFA Rise groups, watch the full webinar below.