I have lost count of the number of privately funded and government-backed mentoring and coaching programs I have come across designed to ‘educate’ women of colour entrepreneurs. What many women of colour entrepreneurs need is not more mentoring programs, but support in the form of investment, executive sponsorship, and brand visibility.

While mentoring programs are important and play a key role in the entrepreneurship life cycle, they alone do not address the myriad of business needs that women of colour entrepreneurs face. A focus on mentoring alone fails to address the concrete needs of women of colour entrepreneurs who struggle to scale and take their businesses to the next level due to the lack of funding.

By providing financial support and opportunities for exposure, investors and sponsors can help level the playing field and provide the much-needed investment to help women of colour entrepreneurs succeed. The need is not a handout, but rather a hand-up to help boost business growth, an outcome that benefits all stakeholders.

Priyanka Ashraf, CEO of The Creative Co-Operative, a social enterprise working to close the intergenerational and intersectional wealth gap experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Black and Women of Colour, knows of this too well. In a report released by her organisation in 2022, Priyanka states that women of colour face additional barriers, with the lack of funding being one of the key barriers. She states how the disparity is particularly visible in the start-up ecosystem.

It is recorded that each year, over 10 billion dollars is invested in Australian-based start-ups, with an iota of this funding allocation going to women of colour entrepreneurs. Priyanka states “Of that 10 billion, 22 per cent went to all women founders and 0.03 per cent went to early-stage Bla(c)k Women and Women of Colour founders.” Let that sink in for a moment.

The barriers faced by women of colour entrepreneurs are many, and addressing this disparity requires a range of approaches. While there is a key role for mentoring and coaching programs to help women of colour entrepreneurs, the reality is, many of us are over-educated and underfunded. It’s high time investors look into this disparity, and address the ingrained systemic inequality to help level the playing field in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.