Successful financial advisor David Smallwood shares plan to create 10,000 Black-owned businesses in the next decade

Get to know David Smallwood; he is a wealth management advisor with Northwestern Mutual. Over the years, he has been very passionate about black empowerment and offering sound financial advice to the black community.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, Smallwood scouts for people who are already doing things that are aligned with his plans.

In this regard, he is working with Nashville-based NGO Corner to Corner to create 10,000 Black-owned businesses in the next decade.

“I knew that it wasn’t just about helping people save for their future, that I had to figure out a way to start to give back into the community and empower the community with some of these financial principles, and so instead of reinventing the wheel, I’m always looking for folks who are already doing certain things and where I can come alongside them and lock arms with folks who may be in a complementary lane to what I’m doing, and Corner to Corner is one of those organizations,” Smallwood was quoted by ClickOrlando.

ClickOrlando said Corner to Corner holds financial literacy programs to help young creatives and entrepreneurs overcome economic inequality.

“What Corner to Corner does is that they’ve said, ‘Hey, the average Black family is about a 10th — wealth-wise — of the average White family in terms of economic empowerment,’ and so they’ve said, ‘You know, that’s creating a $1.6 trillion loss to the American people because of that gap,” Smallwood said. 

According to him, one way to close the gap is through entrepreneurship by capitalizing on the entrepreneurial spirit of black folks.

“One of the ways that we can close that gap is through Black entrepreneurship, that there’s an intuitive, instinctive, I would call just DNA inside of Black folks to want to be entrepreneurs and make things happen,” he said.

Corner to Corner creates a pathway to create micro-entrepreneurs in the black community to let the dollar recycle back into the black community. For him, it is one of the ways to close the racial wealth gap that is separate from the welfare system.

Alternatively, Corner to Corner also provides entrepreneurs the necessary financial support to “see what you can do, let’s empower you to be an entrepreneur and a business owner and change your family’s generational legacy.’”

Before becoming a successful financial advisor, Smallwood spent many years running a small business with his wife. Although their business did not go badly, most of their income was consistently being poured back into the business or going toward raising a family, leaving very little to save, he told bizjournals.com.

“Once we connected with our advisor at Northwestern Mutual, we discovered that it wasn’t about making more money, but about budgeting and giving every dollar a home, including saving for the future. Getting our finances in order with a trusted advisor inspired me to want to do the same for other small business owners and professionals,” said Smallwood.

Click here for his full interview on the “Black Men Sundays” podcast.