Q & A

We recently sat down with Rob McClinton to find out more about his passions, his calling and generally dive in deeper to get to know him.

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What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your work over the last few years?

COVID was definitely the biggest one. I work with small businesses, and there was a lot of figuring out what to do next and how to do it.When everyone stayed home from work, all the restaurants in the area really just started getting crushed, because they were built up around office buildings and not around residences.

Helping them figure that out was a real challenge. We spun up a couple of short-lived apps to help people figure out which restaurants are open, what delivery services they use, that kind of thing, and we just made it free for everyone to use, just to try to help people get more business.

There’s also the racial reckoning that a number of companies struggle with figuring out what to do. I went to De LaSalle High School, which was about 85% white at the time, and a lot of my friends were white. But I’m still a young Black man growing up in Chicago, facing circumstances that those friends will never know. That perspective allowed me to take a step back during the reckoning and say, “Where might some of my friends, who at their core are good people, struggle with some of these things?” I've tried to take a gracious approach when people are struggling with how to respond, because I’ve found that in general, they want to do the right thing. What they don't want to do is to say the wrong thing, because they don't want to be labeled, they don't want all the repercussions that they've seen happen to other people who say the wrong thing. It scares them, and the downside to that fear can be inaction.

We need to create room for people to fall and to pick themselves up. At some point, people who are trying their best are going to fall, and that's how they’ll learn that they made a mistake. Race is so ingrained in how people are raised. We have to understand that and make room for the people who want to get out of that cycle.

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How do we shift the narrative about the role of capital in BIPOC communities and reframe the perceptions of the risk involved?

That's a tough one, because that's part of that systemic training that we're trying to overcome. The folks who are writing the checks have some wiring that is baked inside of their system that stops them from investing in BIPOC communities. They’re ROI-focused, and their wiring tells them that BIPOC communities will not give them a solid ROI.

There’s sometimes a narrative with investors who say, “Oh, I would gladly invest in a BIPOC entrepreneur, if only I could find one,” as though those entrepreneurs are hiding from venture capitalists. I think what those investors need is to see results, because they like having a precedent to look at and rely on. Funds like ICC are creating mechanisms for people to say, “I think I may have a blind spot.” And what we can do is to say, “If you think you have an investment blind spot, we can help you.”

The folks who self-identify as having blind spots may take a look at their founders and their portfolio and their community and find that they’re missing something. Once they start making those “riskier” investments, which are truly no riskier than any other, and they start having returns, that will become part of their investment canon, hopefully making  the race filter irrelevant.

And once they make the investment and begin to see returns, somebody they may know who belongs to the country club, someone who would never have considered this kind of investment before, might say, “I'm gonna go out on a limb.” This is progress. Progress is slow, but it’s still progress.

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What are the top three pieces of  advice you would give to BIPOC entrepreneurs, who are dedicated to both purpose and profit, as they are starting or scaling their business?

First, you have to address the label that people are ultimately going to assign to you. You’re an entrepreneur who happens to be a woman or who happens to be Black. That characteristic is the first thing that some people are going to see–but you’re an entrepreneur first. So, everyone has to be willing to say to an investor, especially one who has a very homogenous portfolio, “I get that you might be talking to me because of this label but I'm taking that label off, because while I’m proudly Black or proudly a woman, I’m here because I’m an entrepreneur who is worth an investment. Let me tell you why.”

You have to do that respectfully, because if you rip them and you're Black and a male, you're the angry black man. If you rip them and you're Black, and you're a woman, you're the angry black woman. There’s going to be some stereotype that people are going to put on you, and you just have to navigate it. People are messy, including the person who's across the table from you, and this is the messiness that they are dealing with from their internal programming, and some of that is outside of their control. That’s why you have to have a line where you just say, “I'm gonna shake off the label.” Addressing it head on frees both of you enough to have a real conversation with a potentially mutually beneficial outcome.

Second: Know your numbers. For some reason, there always seems to be this idea that Black and Brown founders won't know their numbers. Counter that by knowing your numbers inside and out. And if you don't, just say you don't–tell them you’ll come back to them with the numbers. Don’t spin a story. They’ll pick up on that, and the only reason they're hitting you harder is because they're looking for a reason to not invest in you. Don’t hand them one on a platter.

Third: Look at alternative models. Is there a way you can get funding by registering as a minority-owned business or a woman-owned business? Can you get a government contract from the city, the county or the state? What about a cooperative? Do what you can to get money through the door.

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What is the call to action for investors who seek to promote social justice through investment solutions?

Start doing it. How do you do anything else? How have you funded or launched any other project? You just did it, right? If you're an investor, you're well-connected. Reach out to your LinkedIn community and say, “I’m looking for investment opportunities that focus on social justice.” If you want to help social causes, then reach out to the community and say, “I want to help social causes,” and get some feedback from people who you know. Pick a cause that feels good to you, call them up and say, “How can I help?” The need is there and it’s not hiding from you. If you’re serious, just do it.

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What is the call to action for investors who seek to promote social justice through investment solutions?

Ask every person you're interested in investing in the exact same questions. I often wish that we could do what big orchestras do, where the principals audition behind the curtain and you nip that bias in the bud. I think the call to action for investors is to deliberately check their bias and make sure that they're asking the same types of questions to all people who are coming to them with ideas or investable companies. Because today, they are not. We know, for example, that women get asked questions about risk mitigation, while men get asked about their vision. If you're interested in vision, you have to ask women about their vision. If you’re concerned about risk mitigation, you're going to have to ask men about how they're mitigating risk.