Entrepreneurial Appetite

Black Philanthropy Month: Student Freedom Initiative Executive Director Dr. Mark Brown

• Dr. Mark Brown • Season 4 • Episode 27

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 Imagine a radical initiative aimed at closing the student loan and wealth gap crisis in America. This is what Robert F Smith's Student Freedom Initiative, inspired by his empathetic gift to Morehouse's Class of 2019, strives to accomplish. Dr. Brown executive director of the Student Freedom Initiative, a   501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides a catalyst for freedom in professional and life choices for students attending a Minority Serving Institution (MSI) by increasing their social and economic mobility.

Dr. Brown discusses how this exciting new vision is ushering in a fresh wave of opportunities for HBCU students. This is not just a podcast; it's a conversation about the power of education and how it can change lives. Tune in, get inspired, and learn how an HBCU education can be a game-changer.

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Speaker 2:

What's good everyone. I'm Langston Clark, founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. In this episode of Entrepreneurial Appetite, we feature a conversation with Dr Mark Brown, a retired major general who is executive director of the Student Freedom Initiative, a 501C3 non-profit organization that provides a catalyst for freedom in professional and life choices for students attending minority serving institutions by increasing their social and economic mobility. Today we have a very special guest, dr Mark Brown, who is the executive director of the Student Freedom Initiative. He is also a retired major general in the United States Air Force and a proud Tuskegee University graduate, and so you all know me as an alumnus of an HBCU. The podcast supports my endowment at ANT. I always am encouraged and get some enthusiasm when we have another HBCU graduate on the podcast. And so, dr Brown, if you will tell us your HBCU story, what's your Tuskegee story and how did it get you to be into the positions and the places that you're able to be in now?

Speaker 1:

So thanks a lot, langston, thanks a lot for having me. That's a great place to start my HBCU story. I say that because I graduated from Tuskegee in 1986 and I watched Tuskegee transform from Tuskegee Institute to Tuskegee University and I watched generational debates about this title Tuskegee Institute, should it be Tuskegee University and the person leading at the time was the late Dr Benjamin F Payton, who was the president during my time, and he was a president for almost three decades plus at Tuskegee. And so when you ask about my HBCU journey, my HBCU experience, I start with as so many, I think, young black men and women of color do, and that is annoyingly about their future right Kind of a blank slate, looking to be inspired, looking to find something to cling onto that they may or may not have seen in their zip code. Growing up, that was the case with me.

Speaker 1:

I was born on the south side of Chicago. My mother was a nurse and she and my grandmother, who was in South Georgia, raised me. I heard the story of a group called the Tuskegee Airmen. That was inspirational, but I also needed money to go to school and the combination of those two things and at my time Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps was how I found my way to Tuskegee and, as a cadet, unwittingly, unknowingly about the possibilities of what could be. So when I got to Tuskegee, I was inspired by what I saw. I was inspired by people like the late Dr Benjamin F Payton, who was there at the time, and I was inspired by the fact that Tuskegee was not so big that you could not find your individualism inside of a classroom, which is the truth today for a lot of our historically black colleges and universities and the reason that they were founded. I found myself inside of those classrooms as important to the teachers, important to the instructors and important to my peers who were very much like me. So my journey began, I would say, in an unknowing way, as a blank sheet of paper shaped by incredible images that were put around me and inspiration of those who had come before me, and then, obviously like with anyone, what turned out to be a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication and then a lot of enjoyment in something that I think was foundational to my start and something that today I spend my days encouraging others to consider the same.

Speaker 1:

But imagine teachers opening up a world to you that you did not know before and including in that we're weaving into it who you are. Does that happen in every classroom? Not just the knowledge, right? Of course we all need to take biology, we all need to take chemistry, we all need to take the sciences and the material sciences and all of the things that challenges. But will your instructor weave into that who you are and what your role is in that and your heritage? I think they will.

Speaker 1:

If you go to a historically black college and university, that's what happened to me.

Speaker 1:

So not only did I learn about and I'll use my Reserve Officer, Training, corps time, rotc time Not only did I learn about the history and the military arts and sciences of leadership and all of those things that had happened over the many decades, but I also learned why some men had to fight for the right to fight and how they had to hone their skills. In places like Motenfield in South Alabama, where they didn't think that those men could fly complex aircraft, they had to prove themselves right Only to go on and not only fly them, but to master the craft and to lead that profession as well. If you tell a young man that, then you begin not only to prepare him technically for what he's going to do, but you prepare him mentally for what he's going to have to do to persist in the profession ahead. So when I think about Tuskegee, those are the kinds of things that come to mind, and that's the journey that started me off that I so much appreciate today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, before we get into the conversation about the Student Freedom Initiative, I want to share with you what really isn't a parallel story, because my story is a little different. I grew a relatively privileged when I say that the public school that I went to was better than a private school that we played in sports. It wasn't uncommon for students in my high school to go to Ivy League schools, to tier one, r1, aau type institutions, the upper echelon of public institutions. I thrived in that environment.

Speaker 2:

Socially, I wouldn't say that I didn't have had a bad social experience, but academically I was underachieving. My orientation towards thinking about education as a form of uplift for black community didn't happen until I got to ANT. So who I am academically, as someone who graduated high school with a 2.3, with all of the resources available to me, like there's really no excuse, I should have had a 2.3, right, but ANT provided me with the expectation to aspire to have a high GPA, to see myself as someone who was getting my education for something that was beyond just myself. So I think, regardless of where you come from, that in some ways your HBCU education will do that for you. Yes, so can you talk about how your experience, my experience. How was that embedded in the story of the Student Freedom Initiative?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so thanks so much for sharing your experience with me. I actually appreciate that great. It also is a message, I think, to all of your listeners. So the formula and the start is going to differ, right, depending on the individual you're talking to, but the uniqueness of the HBCU, I think, is going to have a connection to it. I would redefine a little bit of what you say to what is the real curse of low expectation? Right? Probably one of the worst things we can do is have some culture of low expectation. How good is good enough? How well will you do? I bet your ANT did not have low expectations for its students. They knew that you could perform well and so they were intent to get it out of you, and I think that is part of the culture of HBCUs Student Freedom Initiative.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about it for a second, so I got a painting picture very quickly. So it's 2019 and Morehouse's pick Robert F Smith, chairman, ceo of Vista Equity and a man of Wealth, to speak at its graduation. Robert Smith has context of the world right, he has context of the world from his position. But he also has signed a giving pledge where he said in his lifetime give over half of his wealth away to philanthropy. He's probably one of the only, if not the only, man of color to have signed this giving pledge, if I am correct. So he goes to Morehouse and he says I'm going to put a little fuel in your bus as the graduation speaker pay off your student loans right, that was well reported. What wasn't as well reported is that, after he did that, he meets with them once a month and he meets with them virtually All of those that want to participate in that class of 2019, he calls it his class right, that class of 2019. And he discusses with them wealth building techniques. Right, he discusses with them okay, you're not paying student loans, I'm sure of that because I paid that. So what are you doing with your income? And he learns things like now I'm free to go to medical school right, now, I have started my own 501C nonprofit. Now I'm investing in endowments for future generations because I don't have this constraint of student loan debt around my neck. So that part is probably not as well known as the fact that he paid the college loans of those 400, I think, in the class and over $30 million of cost At the time.

Speaker 1:

There was no student freedom initiative when he made this. In fact, I was at the US Department of Education under appointment by the Secretary of Education as the Chief Operating Officer for Title IV funding or the Federal Student Aid. In other words, all financial aid for all the schools in the country falls under the Department of Education, the Office of Financial Aid. So that was my portfolio. It was $1.7 trillion in various types of aid in student loans. So $1.7 trillion and in that was 33% at the time was defluxed or delacent.

Speaker 1:

You've heard lots of discussions publicly about the student loan crisis. Well, this is the portfolio from which that discussion starts. Those loans, some parent plus loans, some consolidated loans, things that people have done to finance their higher education was within that $1.7 trillion, and so I worked with his appointed person to execute these and Robert's vision at the time, seeing how complex this was, and what do I mean by complex? So John Doe goes to school, john Doe gets a parent plus loan three years in a row. John Doe's mother now wants to buy a house but she has that debt on her credit record and can't do it, even if he is paying it or not able to pay her. So this was a complex thing. But he didn't see it as a loan per se as a complex thing. He saw it as the wealth gap in America through the lens of education.

Speaker 1:

So how does your story and my story weave into the student freedom initiative? What is our ability, regardless of the zip code that you started, to grow wealth in the country so that we can do something about the wealth gap in America? And what prohibits us from doing that? Even when we get an education and even though we got a good education, what might prohibit us? One element of it might be how we financed that higher education right, and some decisions we made along the way that.

Speaker 1:

Now let me give you one example. If you want to know the heart of student freedom initiative, let's say for a second that you go to Brown University and I go to to the Luke House. Right, we are both chemical engineering mates, right. We have the same basic family income. Every year you get an endowed scholarship to close the last part of your education. It might be eight or $9,000, so that you have everything paid for. My school doesn't have an endowment of that size, and so I go to the parent plus loan system. I do that same thing for four years. You do yours for four years because of the size of the endowed scholarship. At the end we both go work for DuPont. We both get great. We both have 4.0 scholars in chemical engineering. You will use your money, perhaps to grow wealth, right. What will I use my money for? To service that debt. I may service that debt for 10 to 20 years, although we both have received quality education, we both have an outstanding job. Which of us will grow well and which of us will not?

Speaker 1:

So part of what is at the heart of student freedom initiative is the wealth gap in America through the lens of education, and every one of our four pillars comes back to that First pillar alternative to student loans for STEM students, STEM students that are juniors and seniors. We want to give them an alternative to that parent plus loan, and we want to do so in a very unique way. In other words, up to $20,000 per academic year paid back based on their income. No parental signatures required, so no credit check. We're doing it based on what their future earnings potential. If they go to graduate school, they have the freedom to go without paying the spec. If they go into public service, they want to be, let's say, a military officer, they want to be a school teacher and they aren't making 230% above Harvey Lyne. They don't pay us back during that period of public service. They go in that example that we spoke of and let's say they're making $90,000 a year or $100,000 a year. They pay 10% of their income for every 2.5% income for every 10,000 that they took out. And so let's say they took out 10,000, but they don't pay us. They pay back into fund, an endowment fund. Our dollars come from philanthropy and access to low interest capital. They pay back into an endowment fund. Over time that endowment fund is going to grow large enough, both from philanthropy and both from return payments coming back. That fund will belong to all of the schools that are a member of the Student Freedom Initiative and henceforth and forever, in perpetuity, those students who are juniors and seniors majoring in STEM will go to that endowment without walls as an alternative to that parent passport. That's a simplistic view of our model. In our first thing we want to build an endowment without walls for all the schools that participate, but we know it is the wraparound of that student that makes it work, not just the financing of the education. It's the wraparound.

Speaker 1:

So the next pillar is internship, a platform called InternXL. How do I make sure you meet DuPont? How do I make sure that you are put into the right spaces for those kinds of decisions? Well, the way that we do it. There are over 20,000 students on a platform called InternXL. There are over 200 companies, mostly Fortune 500 companies. We look for two paid internships because the data and the independent studies say that over 60 percent of students who have internships in those particular areas will most likely get not only a job but a good job. We ask the company to do certain things offer a stretch assignment, c-suite visibility to make sure that the student only gets a paid internship. We don't go for unpaid internships for our demographic. The XL part on that platform is for certification. There are over 83 certifications that a student can go through in order to prepare themselves for industry. What certifications? It's based on industry demand that came up with those 80 certifications. So what we're telling these students it's not just the last model of the educational cost, it's the holistic way that you get prepared to participate in the industries that you want to participate, starting as early as possible.

Speaker 1:

The third thing is the student themselves. The truth is a great majority of students come from positions of some degree of poverty, especially first-generation students and first-generation parents. So we focus programs on what I would call the resilience of that student, and there are a number of them. I'll give you two real quick Financial literacy for first-generation students and first-generation parents with our partner Prudential. Prudential and Stack Well program called Student Investment Program, where students complete up to two investment courses and then they're given $1,000 to invest in stock that they have throughout their career. We've done the first 489 of those students.

Speaker 1:

Another one is handling everyday life problems for students, where a student can get up to a $500 grant for an emergency. That's non-tuition related. You've been on the campus right? My car broke down. My computer doesn't work anymore. I need a round trip to take it home. Someone passed away. Now some students may be able to just call home and make that happen, but depends on their economic situation. Others may not. My roommate was wise enough to be an engineer, but did not have the financial means to handle emergencies and did not complete school at the time that he was, when I was a student. I'll never forget that because he was so intelligent Otherwise.

Speaker 1:

Well, this grant addresses things like that for students. And then the last one is we invest in the school itself. The last pillar is we invest in the school itself. That can be everything from IT infrastructure upgrades to working with them on solar plant research to working with them as a hub for broadband for their communities. But how do we make the school like your great North Carolina anti? How do we make those schools competitive with others in their week? So I just wanted to give you just a picture of what Student Freedom Initiative is doing. How do you weave all of that together? Wealth Gap in America. Google Ends of Education.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate all of what you described because I think of it as a systemic solution. So you know how academics are, especially Black. Hardcore Social Justice academics are always talking about systemic oppression, systemic racism, patriarchy, sexism all of those things that can be constraining for communities' success, but very rarely do I hear conversations about systemic solutions, and I think the model that you just presented is one that is novel and, as I stated before in our pre-conversation, it's something that is inspiring even to me, even though I'm not a billionaire. In your story, you talked about all these seats that you've sat in right, one of your graduate of Tuskegee University, two of you worked in the Department of Education with $1.7 trillion budget that you were responsible for, now working for the Student Freedom Initiative, and so I'm wondering can you give us your definition of philanthropy, but then also talk about how, outside of these positions that you've been in, how are you a philanthropist yourself?

Speaker 1:

Let me try and redefine philanthropy or give us another way of thinking about it's a traditional word. We use it fairly freely, right or philanthropists or philanthropy. I will tell you we believe in investments. So we take possibly a different view than others that do on this, but we believe that in our capitalistic society that we are talking about Investments. And so when we say there are over 200 companies on the platform and we start talking about things, remember that. What do companies need? Companies need talented individuals. So our way of asking and thinking about philanthropy is Something for something.

Speaker 1:

How many times have you heard an industrial or corporate person say I want to diversify my company and I'm having a trouble finding the town and Talent acquisition right is a very costly matter for any company or any entity. Any federal agency caught talent acquisition. So we're in the talent acquisition business because we believe there is hidden talent on the campuses of Historically black colleges and universities that is yet to be found by all of those that say they want it. So we're saying we've already found it. We put it together, we know how to get you to it. Tell us what you want and that's how your philanthropy works. But you have to make sure it's cultivated as we bring it to you, and that is courage as we bring to you. So a philanthropy for a company, as we define it is, we're going to make sure you get the talent, you're going to participate in training, in the preparation of the talent.

Speaker 1:

And, by the way, there's a larger issue you ought to think about. It's a social justice issue, and that is what kind of financial position will they be on when they graduate? So invest in the fund right so that we can free them of this crushing debt and they can be able to grow wealth when they grow and also invest in their continuous Education through some of these other programs and then maybe even provide some in-kind services and then establish a relationship With the school so that you continue to come back and watch us diversify your papal for your pipeline. That is how you practice philanthropy in a way that's not all give from one side. Investment is a better word. Yeah, that's why we say I can give Langston a scholarship and he's taken care of. I could give him a single scholarship and he's taken care of. But if I want to take care of the village, then I better design a systematic fund that will continue after I'm gone, and that systematic fun is what we call the endowment without wall.

Speaker 2:

Hey everyone, thank you again for your support of entrepreneurial appetite. Beginning this season, we are inviting our listeners to support the show through our patreon website. The founding 55 patrons will get live access to our monthly Discussions for only $5 a month. Your support will help us hire an intern or freelancer to help with the production of the show. Of course, you can also support us by giving us five stars, leaving a positive comment or sharing the show with a few friends. Thank you for your continued support right.

Speaker 1:

So personally, I give dollars each month through allocation to Skiing University. I do it for the purpose of last mile cost in the fund for Students. In other words, I want to make sure that my roommate situation never happens again. Yeah, that we gets there. He has a way. If he does everything else, has a talented be in his case an electrical engineer that he won't go home because of the last bit of cost that his parents income won't allow him to borrow. That situation happens every day on our campuses. But, importantly also, I give of my time right. So and I believe this is giving up my time but also do in other mentorship programs where we try to create that positive image that I talked about, that I saw when I was on the campus To ski, that I hope people are seeing and I know they're seeing to this very day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I Think about the way that you describe philanthropy as something that is enduring, beyond just who you are as the individual, and I also think about the impact that something like that would have had on the brothers that I was in the same dorm with my freshman year, and I don't throw this out to be negative or bashing of HPC use and things like that, because there are real issues that students bring to campus. It is persistent enough for some students just to make it to college, just to leave home and get to campus their freshman year, and so I think about the number of brothers who didn't make it past sophomore year for whatever reason, and then the number of brothers who didn't graduate in four years for whatever reasons, and a lot of those aren't because we were just wild it out, right, we weren't any different than the other college student, those at Chapel Hill, those at NC State. We just say like we're young, we do the same things. But the reasons why Some didn't make it through wasn't because they didn't have the character or the intelligence. A lot of it was financial, was social reasons, and so I appreciate this approach to philanthropy as investment.

Speaker 2:

I know that you also spent many years in the service Right and there are a number of ways that people can serve their communities, and you did that through the military, and I'm wondering if you could paint a picture for us, for those in the audience. What does it mean? How is philanthropy at HBCU is also a form of service to the country.

Speaker 1:

So I think that's a great way to put it. So we have to step back from the condition of the streets, the condition of the buildings on the HBCU campus, the neighborhoods that they're in. We have to step back from that, I believe, a bit and take a more reflective view of what they are right.

Speaker 1:

And I know that and I hope that all of our viewers know that HBCUs were there for a purpose and their purpose is quite different than other schools. I'll just say they are there to service a greater good, a group of folks who over time were denied an education. So start with that right. Start with the reason you have HBCUs to begin with was so that people of color had somewhere to go to school. And if you add to that that the selection rate and the selectivity to coming to an HBCU cannot be the same as it would be for Harvard or other school or it would have lost its mission to solve this greater good and to overcome other inequities that may have happened. That allows a student to start one way but end another right In that time. So that confound that we're calling the historically black college and university is something far greater than just a school. To its community and to its people. Right, it's a haven. It's a safe haven for what else society may have denied.

Speaker 1:

Now, that may be too strong for some to agree with, but history says I'm right. History says that the moral act, the first moral act, didn't work the federal government's desire right To provide education didn't work because people of color weren't allowed to go to those schools. The bridge didn't work. It took a second moral act right. And it took the establishment of these land grant universities to then become a place where students could go and create the social and economic mobility that education was designed to do. And so if you decide to go work on an HBCU camp or if you decide to somehow be of service on that camp, you are being of service to the greater good. Now remember not how they start but how they finish.

Speaker 1:

Now HBCUs are producing some amazing results of people who are participating in many ways in the national economy, in the US military, in the school houses of our folks right In this country, public servants of all types in the government, at all levels of the government, in congressional seats.

Speaker 1:

But they started in a different way. Perhaps they may have even started as not the most promising student, but their doors were open to this safe haven in the middle of our communities that meets you where you are and then gets you to where you need to be. That's public service, that's the greater good. So you may not make the salary at an HBCU that you might make at a larger state school Back? I'm pretty sure that you won't, but your impact is going to be profound, I would say, and amazing. So I think service on an HBCU campus is an ultimate public service to a greater good and it has a historical founding. Keep in mind that we added up the endowments of 70% of the HBCUs, added them up, total Together. They did not total the endowment of one Ivy League school. So when you talk about pay and benefits and those kinds of things that happen on an HBCU campus, it's public service Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So we talked about history, right, and the long history of HBCUs doing this work of uplift from black communities and black individuals. There's also this long history of investment in black colleges from the old industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilt, and then you have organizations that were founded or started by black folks UNCF, frederick Douglass, patterson, mary Macleod, bethune, the Thurgood Marshall Fund, more recently by Dr Injoy's Payne. And I'm wondering, it seems like that the Student Freedom Initiative and the Endowment Without Walls could usher in what I think has the potential to be like the next era of strategic investment in black colleges. And so how do you see not just the Student Freedom Initiative evolving into the future, but really kind of creating this culture of philanthropy with and for historically black colleges and universities?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a great point. We agree with it. We believe that there is a new way, more in touch with the relationship between industry and talent and the growing of that talent than ever before, and that's how the role that the HBCU can begin to play. I'll give you an example of what we mean by that. If you think of where our schools are located around the world, right. If you think of where they are mostly in the South, right, where most people of color are concentrated, I think the census and other data will prove that that school is most likely the economic hub of that city. Savannah State College right St Augustine in North Carolina, right up the street. Your sister's school then in college, right In Greensboro. They're not just a school, they're the economic hub of that community. They're the large, in many cases the largest, employer. Tuskegee is the largest employer in Tuskegee. Alabama, alabama A&M is not the largest employer in Huntsville, but it is one of the largest employees in Huntsville. The same is true in Montgomery and Alabama State, right. The same is true of Clafflin and South Carolina State in Orangeburg. So all of these places are the economic hubs of their communities.

Speaker 1:

Let me give you an example of how we envisioned them. So we are now going very hard to make sure broadband access, high speed internet access, is available on the campus and within a 200 mile radius of it in that community, because if you're not connected digitally you're not connected to the economy, right, and so federal government will deploy infrastructure and investment dollars for the purposes of connecting America. As a part of the recent administration act. We are preparing those communities to be prepared to receive those dollars through putting grant writers with them. And imagine if those internet providers of their operation from the HBCU campus, imagine if those students learn the skills of internet and broadband, providing 5G skills, while they're in school and they were in the operation. The school becomes a revenue generator and not just a revenue user, right, and it begins to feed itself. It begins to not just exist on philanthropy and donations but it begins to feed itself.

Speaker 1:

That's our vision of this economic hub that is the HBCU campus. That plays that central role in that community, because when that school wins and that way it's the same thing for 200 mile radius around it right, those citizens win as well. We've identified 70 communities and 70 HBCUs where we're going to go into that community and help them prepare to become broadband ready across not just their campus but a 200 mile radius or so outside of their campus, and let those internet providers then consider that economic hub when they begin to disperse what is a significant amount of federal dollars available right now through broadband access. That's how you create, that's how you rethink and reimagine the role of what has sat in the middle of the communities now, in some cases for over 100 years. That's what we're thinking, that's part of the vision. There are other examples, but I offer that one as a recent one.

Speaker 2:

When you think about your school and what it should be, and so you know what the power of mentorship at an HBCU is. I had a mentor who wasn't one of my professors, she was a staff member, and she pulled me to the side one day. She was like Langston. You need to understand. There would be no black middle class in Greensboro, north Carolina, if not for North Carolina ANT, it would not exist. There would be no teachers for counties, no black teachers. In the same way, for Guilford County Schools, the small businesses that exist, all of that, the churches that exist, a lot of them would not be there in the same way that they are if not for the people who were produced and nurtured and incubated at ANT.

Speaker 2:

And so I've heard you in the past say that, in researching this conversation, that Robert Smith is a man of vision and scale. And so when you talk about making the HBCU self-sustaining and able to feed itself, that's both interesting and inspiring. I want you to talk about how do we scale, robert Smith? And so part of the Student Freedom Initiative is these students are paying back their loans, but they're paying back their loans into a fund that will build this endowment without walls. But when I talk about how do we scale Robert Smith, how do we take these students and make them intentionally become philanthropists on their own?

Speaker 1:

So I will tell you and I certainly don't speak for Robert Smith, but I can certainly craft this for you because I've spent some time here with him and thinking through this. It's important that people reflect a little bit on his story. And in Denver, growing up and learning from a very much real-class family not growing up wealthy or anything like that but curious about an internship with a company that asked for, I think, a sophomore or junior and applying, only to be told no, we met a college sophomore or junior or something like that, but then calling them back once a week, did you feel the job Until finally they got no one to fill the internship and they gave it to him in high school and in that job he runs into a mentor and that mentor ends up working with him and he ends up going to Cornell, and the story goes on and on and on. His point was that when he arrived at this internship he had not before then been exposed to the things he was exposed to there, and it was the exposure that began to create. Now there are lots of other things I can't substitute for hard work. You've got to get up in the morning, you've got to go, you have to be self-disciplined. Right, there are a number of things and practices you have to do, but the exposure changed the trajectory of his life. I think he would recite that far more eloquently than I just did, but that's the point.

Speaker 1:

So the way we create more Robert Smith is to increase the exposure as early as we can to the things that may not be otherwise visible or even thought to be available to some students or some young men and women, based on wherever they come from. But Robert does that routinely. He does that routinely. That's what intern XL is all about. Intern XL is about, yes, appropriate corporate behavior in terms of responsibility for these students, but also exposure in mass numbers and scale so that their true talents can come out and you can create the next Robert Smith.

Speaker 1:

Here's the thought We've missed many, many Roberts Smiths because of the lack of exposure. Right, we've missed many, many because of the lack of exposure. So how do we now double down and put people in positions to see what they may have otherwise never seen before? I think that's his philosophy. I think he's putting it into practice through programs like intern XL. He's putting it into practice like mentorship, once a month with those students, and he talks about wealth building techniques right Now that you make money. How do you build wealth with that money if you're not strapped down with that? So he is working, I think, tirelessly, in my opinion, in my humble opinion, to do just what you just asked, and that is to create not just the next Robert Smith, but the next Roberta Smith, as necessary. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I like how you brought up intern XL and I'm thinking about black businesses and I think that there's a spirit of entrepreneurship among younger people, right. I know my peers, I know the students that I work with at the university that I work at right now. They got their main jobs, they got a side hustle and they're ready to do their own thing in business, right. And so I have a number of friends who have startups and how they're starting their startups. They have HBCUs in mind, right. And so how do you envision something like intern XL providing opportunities for someone who's starting a business but wrapped up in that business is some type of social entrepreneurship that would benefit the experience of students at HBCUs and also institutionally? But an issue that I see is, like they don't have the money to pay for the intern. How do we provide opportunities for black owned businesses to benefit from what something like internship XL could be for a Fortune 500 company?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the one thing I'd like for you and your viewers to take the chance to look at is something called Southern Communities Initiative, sci. It's focused on six cities in the USA which together, within six states together, really house more than 50% of the people of color in the entire country, because of where these cities are cities like Birmingham, new Orleans. But that initiative one part of it is all about bringing an industry to provide access to capital to growing entrepreneurs and small businesses. So the center of what you said and you are so right is that not for the lack of talent, but for the lack of capital or access to low interest, no interest, reasonable capital is why many of our businesses and other entrepreneurs are failed. I think to get out of the starting blocks that's part of what SCI does is bring in industry, look for opportunities to provide access to capital.

Speaker 1:

The executive director is a person by the name of Mamboo Sherman. I just urge everyone to look up SCI and look at what we're doing for helping provide small business, growing entrepreneurs with access to capital, because I think that's really at the heart of what we are talking about. Because if you have access to capital and you're growing your business, then this other part about being able to do some work in the world of social justice and social equity and those kind of things and to address some of our inequities becomes a natural thing, especially for those who are already en route to their success, if you will, as part of their business and entrepreneurial efforts. So I just strongly encourage you and other readers to go to the SCI and learn about it and their executive director, mamboo Sherman, about what they're doing in these six cities.

Speaker 2:

And Mamboo was also a graduate of an HPCU. I learned that on the panel of discussion at South by Southwest EDU and he has big vision, big ideas $100 million investment, world changing types of companies, world changing HPCUs that are like Wakanda forever. Anyways, don't let me go in that tangent, because that was literally one of my favorite panel discussions that you were on at South by Southwest EDU, right?

Speaker 1:

he's a Savannah State graduate. He's a graduate of Savannah State University down in Georgia.

Speaker 2:

And so our last question. I mentioned to you previously that, in some ways, our origins are as a book club, and so I was wondering if, for our listeners who are also readers, could you suggest a book that you're currently reading or a book that you've read in the past that has inspired you on your journey, maybe helped get you to the seat that you're sitting in, and or maybe just enjoy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so first, thanks for having a book. Like reading, it's my favorite pastime and it can do so much for us in terms of broadening our horizons Right now. If I were going to tell you the book that's on the mantle right now, the state must provide oh, by Adam Harris, the state must provide. Adam is a journalist, but he's also a graduate of Alabama A&M and he's, in my opinion, a great researcher as well. The way that he looked at his time in Alabama A&M and other schools and what states were required to do to provide to them. So, alabama A&M, texas A&M, right Alabama A&M. University of Alabama, prairie View, texas A&M. So just take all the schools with A&M behind their name, or state schools, and follow the law that says the state must provide, and then visit two campuses, one PWI and one HBCU, and see if the state has provided equitable to those schools or if there is a systemic issue.

Speaker 1:

It's a great book. It's a great read for those who look on the outside at our HBCU campuses and schools and wonder why they could be in certain conditions and other schools are in other conditions and they go. My goodness, the school happens to be doing so much better. There's so much more to that story than meets the naked eye and Adam, in his excellent book the state must provide, lays it all out for us in a very visible way to understand how we got here and why this work that we do. It is so very, very important so I couldn't put it down. I strongly recommend others If you get a chance to pick it up. The state must provide.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and so Adam is a former guest on the podcast, so you brought up Adam Harris Listen. So the people who support my podcast through Patreon or come to the live discussions they're donation based for them to come, they pay whatever they want, but 10% of what they give goes to that endowment that I started with my friends, and Adam's time on the podcast was when me and my two friends made our endowment public, and so I encourage everybody to get the book. The state must provide, especially those of us who are unfairly judgmental of historically black colleges and universities, of what they have, what they don't have, what they do, what they don't do. This book breaks down all of those reasons for why these inequities exist, and so I appreciate you sharing that. Excellent.

Speaker 2:

All right, dr Brown, thank you for joining us. I look forward to learning more about the Student Freedom Initiative. I look forward to supporting the Student Freedom Initiative and, again, as I told you in a pre-recording, I am really inspired and encouraged and motivated by the work that's being done by the Student Freedom Initiative, and I look forward to stepping my game up as a philanthropist as well. So thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1:

Thank you and thanks for what you all are doing and for everyone. Go out to wwwstudentfreedominitiativeorg and check us out and give us a call if you have any questions. Great meeting you, and thanks again for all that you're doing.

Speaker 2:

You as well, Thank you. Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you like the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment.