About Us
What We Know
According to AEO, if Black-owned businesses were able to reach employment parity with all privately held U.S. firms, close to 600,000 new jobs would be created, and $55 billion would be added to the national economy. Currently, 96 percent of the 2.58 million Black-owned firms are sole proprietors, compared to 81 percent of US firms. But if 380,000 sole proprietor firms — just 15 percent of all Black-owned firms — hired one more person:
- Black-owned employer firms to nonemployer firms would reach parity with all U.S. firms.
- Over 200,000 jobs would be created
- $33 billion in revenue would be added to our national economy.
- Could reduce the rate of unemployment in the Black community to 5 percent.
- Overall revenue of Black-led firms would increase to $22B.
By designing policies, services, funding, and programs to support the goal of 15 percent of Black-owned firms to hire at least one more person.
By offering innovative and flexible financing products, as well as providing powerful technical support, Black-owned firms could grow revenues and create new jobs in their local communities. This reality informs our ‘why’.
Our Why
Mission:
We power equitable access and culturally responsive capital, capacity and community to ‘next stage’ Black, brown-led and rural-based businesses across MN to thrive and have long-term sustainable growth.
Our Team
Y. Elaine Rasmussen
Founder and CEO
Ms. Y. Elaine Rasmussen is Founder/CEO of Social Impact Strategies Group (SISG) a Black/Native-led certified B-corp social enterprise. SISG provides consultation on operationalizing social impact and racial equity in the finance and philanthropy sector. Rasmussen’s clients include Allianz, Frontier Incubators, Beta.MN, Swift Family Foundation and Greater Twin Cities United Way.
Rasmussen is also the founder of ConnectUP! Institute a social finance and enterprise development innovation center. The Institute offers education workshops for investors & underestimated entrepreneurs, and produces the annual ConnectUP! MN Summit which promotes and grows inclusive and equitable entrepreneur ecosystems that drive positive, sustainable impact grounded in economic justice.
Rasmussen was named 2020 Finance and Commerce’s Top Women in Finance, AARP/Pollen’s 50 Over 50, and is currently a Boston Impact Initiative (BII) Fund-Building fellow. Rasmussen’s board service includes Minnesota Diversified Industries (MDI) and serves on the investment committees of Nexus Community Partners and Swift Foundation. Her overarching goal? To move billions of investment dollars into Black/Brown and rural communities.
Rebecca Obounou
Integrated Capital Fund Fellow
Rebecca Obounou (she/her) is a community builder and impact investing practitioner who manages the ConnectUP! Integrated Capital Fund ($500K+ portfolio) investing in rural and BIPOC small businesses. She facilitates values-aligned investing education and served on the Racial Justice Investing Coalition’s Proxy Voting Working Group.
Previously, Rebecca secured $350K in funding for MIT’s IDEAS Social Innovation Incubator, and spent a decade providing technical assistance to 200+ entrepreneurs in rural Haiti, establishing revolving loan funds and co-designing community-owned cooperatives.
A first-generation American with deep ties to Haiti, Rebecca brings 15+ years bridging families, entrepreneurs, and mission-aligned capital. She was a 2025 NAIC Up Fellow and 2024 17 Asset Management Fellow. She holds an MBA from Babson College and speaks fluent French and Haitian Kreyòl. Based in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, she operates OE Consulting.
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