Conference aims to help entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders secure funding

All right, More Money, More Impact. That's the name of a two-day conference hosted by Black Leaders Detroit. Now, the goal is to help pour more money into your business or your nonprofit. So joining me now is the BLD CEO, DeJuan Danbridge. DeJuan, how are you this afternoon, man? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Hey, man, it's good to see you. Good to have you here. Look, this is a very valuable resource, a very valuable tool. You've got two days here, and you're helping a lot of people. and we talked about this a lot of people um in the black community and really just in in many of the communities they want to start a non-profit but trying to get that start can be the toughest thing so where does your uh two-day seminar workshop come in so i think what i've noticed in my observation is oftentimes when we start something we're practitioners right so we're looking to we we overcame this obstacle in life and we want to go show others that are facing the same thing how we overcame it and scale it right um while we're really good at that part sometimes we were talking about off camera sometimes you don't have the network to fund the thing so so many black non-profit leaders are funding it out of their pocket working a full-time job trying to raise a family and giving their whole selves into these initiatives so i was fortunate to work for a white-led non-profit got a great education uh life remodeled um and my friend chris lambert who was a CEO at the time. I got a chance to shadow him and follow him when he was in the room with the big check writers. And I would say that I learned so much and I just want to share it with other people that are facing some of the same challenges. Out here doing crazy impactful work, but they need the resources to fund it, right, before they exhaust their own bank accounts. Let me ask you this. How many times do you run into people that have started this journey? Yeah. And you see they're doing three, four, five, six, seven, eight different jobs just to maintain this one non-profit yeah and you see well i can help you consolidate that so you don't have to work so hard yeah there's some some some crazy strategy i mean some simple strategies right yeah we were talking about it your network so many of us have you know folks that we can reach out to and we call and say hey can you come and help me and talk to the children or like whatever the thing is but we need to be able to call check writers right folks that have income and want to support worthy causes um and that's some of the things that we're going to be talking about like how to intentionally grow your network how to find out where the money is um how to you know connect with foundation leaders how to get in the room with them right um so those are some of the things so many uh non-profit leaders believe that hey i just need a good grant writer right and that is really not the starting point if you're looking to raise the type of dollars it takes to sustain organizations. I think part of the battle, as you said, is just getting in the room with the grant writers, but at the same time, you have to be able to sell your story. Definitely. How critical is that part of the puzzle? Yeah, I mean, understanding the work that you're doing and being able to communicate it is two different things, right? So, you know, everybody should have an elevator pitch. If you ask me, what does Black Leaders Detroit do? I'd say we're a funding vehicle that provides capital to black entrepreneurs in the city of Detroit. We service the for-profit and non-profit sector. We do that primarily through grants and no-interest loans. Right? Yeah. Very simple. You get to the point. I get it. One more time before we go. We've got about 30 seconds, but let people know where they can find you. It's November 30th, so it's election day and the day after. Yes, so more money, more impact. If you are a non-profit leader, you know a non-profit leader. You want to come and hear from me and others that have raised a lot more money than I have, sharing fundraising strategies on how to take your organization to the next level. DeJuan, we appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me. No problem, man. Alright, you can check him out. We got more information on tickets. You can visit blackleadersdetroit.org. We'll also have it on our website fox2detroit.com. We'll be right back.