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“I think that Maggie’s entire mission was to uplift African American women,” says Liza Mickens, the great-great-granddaughter of Maggie Lena Walker, the first Black woman to found and charter a bank in America. Walker didn’t just make history as the first Black woman to own and charter her own bank, but she led a civil rights movement in Richmond, Virginia in the 1920s and was the largest employer of Black women in the area. “I think her economic achievements are incredible,” said Mickens. “I’m not necessarily the most business savvy person, so I really just admire all of the political activism that she did. She was the first African-American woman to run for a statewide office in Virginia and till this day we have not seen another Black woman make it on a statewide ballot here in Virginia.” Today, Mickens continues to do in her work with Vote Equality. “I think that making sure that we are really in the political arena and making sure that we realize the true power of our vote,”...
Back in June, PayPal made a $530 million commitment to Black and minority-owned businesses to fight racial injustice. Now, as a part of that promise, the financial giant is paying up. In a press release , Paypal announced an investment of $50 million in eight early-stage Black and Latinx-led venture capital funds: Chingona Ventures; Fearless Fund; Harlem Capital; Precursor Ventures; Slauson & Co.; VamosVentures; Zeal Capital Partners; and one additional fund. The money will be funneled to each company through PayPal venture capital arm, PayPal Ventures, which invests in startups from series A to late-stage funding. “Black and Latinx founders have been underrepresented in venture capital funding for far too long,” said president and CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman. In addition to providing capital to minority-led VCs, PayPal Ventures is offering a three-month fellowship to a Black or Latinx graduate student each semester. In the program, the student will be mentored about business....
The presence of right-wing militia groups has made attempting to navigate the border even more precarious for migrants and their families. Last week, The New York Time s reported that a group operating out of New Mexico detained hundreds of migrants at gunpoint. The group — known as the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP) — uploaded videos of their actions to social media. Outside donations play a big role in Crowdfunding UCP’s funding strategy and crowdfunding platforms have been a big asset for them, until now. Recently, both PayPal and GoFundMe banned the group from using their services, as reported by BuzzFeed News . Both PayPal and GoFundMe have policies regarding the promotion of hate or violence. It seems the group was removed in violation of those policies, as a PayPal spokesperson told BuzzFeed: “The account associated with United Constitutional Patriots has been closed due to a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy. We do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote...
Venmo, the mobile payment service owned by PayPal that lets users send money to friends, is increasing its Instant Transfer fee to 1 percent. The Instant Transfer features allowed Venmo users to send their account balances directly to their Mastercard or Visa debit cards within 30 minutes for a 25 cent flat fee. The standard transfer which takes one to three business days will remain free. Joshua Perrin, a Washington, D.C. resident, said he started using Venmo in September when his apartment burned down, specifically for the 25-cent fee. “I was getting huge donations. Some were several hundred to $1,000, so it made sense to only have to spend a quarter to have instant access to the money,” Perrin said. Perrin said that now that the fee has increased, there is no advantage to using Venmo over its competitor Cash App which also has a 1 percent fee for instant deposits. In June, Venmo announced that it is releasing a debit card for its users. Venmo competitor Square began releasing...