Equity for Black Women and Girls

Did you know that less than 1% of community dollars goes to help Black Women and Girls in Contra Costa?  Now, we all know that BW&G have done miracles making a dollar out of 15 cents. At RCF Connects, we imagine a world where they get the whole dollar – a whole dollar that puts funding, training, and safe spaces in the hands of Black Women entrepreneurs and community leaders to share, building generational wealth and financial freedom. The Equity for Black Women and Girls Initiative does just that. 

In October 2020, Dr. Cynthia LeBlanc, RCF Connects’ Board Chair recommended that the organization’s recently adopted equity statement be actualized through a board initiative to address equity for Black women and girls in Contra Costa County. The board of directors approved the RCF Connects Equity for Black Women and Girls Initiative: Black women and girls will be seen, heard, and served.

RCF Connects selected a local, Black-female-led firm, Coach to Discover, Inc., to lead a surveying effort to explore the needs and existing supports for Black women and girls. Coach to Discover and a design team of Black women community stakeholders and Dr. LeBlanc collected the data through Sister Circle focus groups with Black women and girls and a focus group and electronic survey with funding organizations. 

RCF Connects and its board of directors has a unique opportunity to center Black women and girls in Contra Costa County as a strategic plan priority in alignment with its advancement of equity as a value and goal.

Key recommendations from this survey include securing funding for:

• A Grant Funding and Technical Assistance Program to deliver Sister Circles.
• A Black Women and Girls Incubator Program, to support Black women and girl’s new and existing business enterprises.
• Convening Black-led organizations and other organizations that serve Black people in Contra Costa County to inventory services for Black women and girls.
• Lead an ongoing task force on Black women and girls to partner on implementing these recommendations.
• Create and fund a permanent position within RCF Connects, staffed by a Black woman, to support the fulfillment of the goals of the Equity for Black Women and Girls Initiative.