The future of Black Girl Fest
A Letter from Nicole Crentsil, co-founder & CEO
2020 was a weird year for all of us. I spent a large part of it feeling super anxious but trying to remain positive and hopeful.
I remember feeling despondent and generally low amidst the global lockdown, BLM and #ENDSARS protests. However, one thing I appreciated was the space to think about Black Girl Fest. Although we had announced a break at the start of the year (which in hindsight was so lucky) I still had no idea if we could ever run large scale events anytime soon. I felt a sense of urgency to build a new covid-proof business model that would allow us to survive, whatever the future holds.
The Black Girl Fest story
Black Girl Fest was created out of a desire to see more Black women in arts programming. I couldn’t have imagined that this idea, born from a spreadsheet, would become an important and fruitful space for our community.
We really created something out of nothing and scrambled the whole thing together from a tiny studio flat in North London. From our crowdfunding campaign to filling the Business Design Centre with 3000 people, it’s all been such an incredible journey.
I’ll never forget the queue to get into the first festival. We packed out a small venue in Shoreditch that was quickly overcapacity. We had no idea that the thousands of people who booked tickets would actually show up — and boy did you show up.
Black Girl Fest 2017, Photography by Bernice Mulenga
A memory I’ll hold dear is seeing a little Black girl buying a Black doll that looked exactly like her and watching her reaction when she saw herself reflected. I even remember crying when a group of aunties held our hands and thanked us for what we had created. That moment truly felt like our ancestors were speaking to us.
Although we spent the next few months working full time and fitting Black Girl Fest in and around lunch breaks and weekends, you honestly couldn’t have noticed because we did the absolute most. From our TimeOut takeover issue to working with Penguin to create the Becoming Festival, anyone looking in would not have believed this output really came from a side hustle.
But we were determined to take up space, celebrate ourselves and ensure that everyone would be paid for their time. We were bold, confident, and brimming with creative ideas. We had all the spark and enthusiasm but needed to figure out how to create a sustainable business model that didn’t rely on crowdfunding campaigns each year.
BGF Becoming Festival 2019, Photograph by Krystal Neuvill
We didn’t prioritise self-care in those days and I remember moments where I would cry in the work toilets, exhausted and stressed out. I don’t think people really knew what it took to run such a large scale event. The meticulous planning and detailing but also the creativity and innovation to create something new and exciting each year. Going freelance was a big relief, it meant that I could get better at the juggling act we had created for ourselves.
Black Girl Festival 2018, Photograph by Krystal Neuvill
But we were still working on a project by project basis and the end goal was to get everything paid for. For us, it wasn’t enough to do unpaid projects because we had to support the communities we are committed to serving and that included paying everyone, ourselves included.
In 2018, I quit my job at Fearless Futures and my old boss was kind enough to introduce me to an investor. I didn’t know much about the VC world and wasn’t sure if this was the right route for Black Girl Fest, but we needed money and we needed to be self-sufficient. I remember having a phone call with a founder friend three days before Christmas in 2018. They strongly advised that we build a commercial arm and reinvest the profits back into the business.
So I spent my Christmas eve building a growth strategy to do exactly that. I wanted to ensure we were intentional whilst navigating this new space. Our goal was to create meaningful partnerships that would spark new conversations and create new opportunities for our community. This led to working with clients such as Lush, Give Blood NHS and Today at Apple.
And now, we’re here.
“We Move” are the only words that truly define my mind-set for 2021. Who would have thought I’d be relaunching Black Girl Fest sat on my balcony in Ghana — truly taking working from home to a whole new level. After three years, I’m so excited to announce that Black Girl Fest 2.0 is finally here — a new and improved platform dedicated to Black women, girls and non-binary people. From what started as a side project, today we are relaunching as a fully-fledged creative company led by a fantastic new team of three with actual salaries.
We rest and now we move
As the world continues to be halted by the uncertainty of the pandemic and we start to hear new conversations about vaccines and global recessions, all I could think about was the future of Black Girl Fest. In a world that still relied on the strength and tenacity of Black women, what kind of platform could Black Girl Fest be? What purpose could it serve in this new normal and how would I pivot the business to survive whatever the future had in store?
Over the last few months, I’ve been in research mode: reading, listening to and taking part in as many conversations about and with our community. In that time, I clocked that everything Black Girl Fest had created so far was really the perfect mix of having a great product and service for an underserved market. We had no infrastructure and just worked on whatever came our way. We needed to be stabilised by a strong vision and focused on a clear mission that allowed us to be covid-proof for the future.
Black Girl Fest is a success story and we need more stories.
So this letter is sort of an accountability post, mainly to document this process but also to be more transparent in the hopes that this could guide and inspire the next entrepreneur.
2020 showed me that Black Girl Fest could not simply exist as a yearly cultural event. We needed to be more — we needed to do more. Innovation looks like putting everything on the table and asking “What aren’t we doing? Why aren’t we doing it? What do we need to do? How do we do it?” And that’s exactly what I did to roadmap a future for the business.
What aren’t we doing? Right now, we’re not running physical events.
Why aren’t we doing it? The pandemic makes it hard for us to safely connect and engage with each other.
What do we need to do? Establish Black Girl Fest as a global platform for all Black women, girls and non-binary people
How do we do it? Explore new ways to produce engaging content, build an arm to the business that focuses on digital events and support a community to thrive in this space.
Why I’m pivoting Black Girl Fest
Change is scary but change is necessary.
In “The Hard Things About Hard Things” Ben Horowitz says “Innovation requires a combination of knowledge, skill and courage” so I’m taking a leap of faith and pivoting the organisation. Change is scary but change is necessary. I can only hope that our community continues to support Black Girl Fest as we embark on this new and exciting journey. My love for my community runs deep, the work I do is bigger than me, so right now is the time to do it.
This past year, I became an angel investor to make investments in businesses owned by Black women. I’ve been working with institutions to create more opportunities for young Black girls and been consulting with brands and businesses to ensure our community is well represented across the board. All of this was intentional to explore what kind of platform I could build for Black Girl Fest. What new challenges did our community face and how could we create a space to solve this?
The Black community, and especially Black women, are failed across economic, social and educational spaces. Recent research shows that 0.02% of total venture capital invested over the last 10 years went to Black women entrepreneurs. Also, Black women make up just 0.1% of active professors in the UK compared to 68% who are white men.
What we do know is that Black women drive culture. We are at the centre of every major cultural moment but never directly benefiting from it.
This is why we see Black Girl Fest as an ecosystem because we cater to a community that is often ignored. According to Google in a recent survey for #YoutubeBlack, 75% of Black millennials are more likely to consider a brand that positively reflects black culture.
Black Girl Fest is that brand — we just needed to do the work to reflect this.
For me, seeing my community thriving is my jam. I’ve spent the last 6 years building a career that creates spaces for Black women — there isn’t an opportunity that I’m not sharing, creating or supporting. From Unmasked Women in 2016 to Black Girl Fest and now BIG SIS, I’ve been on a mission to see Black women thriving. I’m passionate about the work I do and feel energised to do more, so it makes sense to put this energy back into Black Girl Fest.
Unmasked Women exhibition 2016, Photograph by Holly Cato
Onwards and upwards
Through all the challenges, Black Girl Fest saw some success. Due to our commitment to the Academy programme, we were awarded a large grant which allowed us to extend the content, offer kick-starter grants to all participants on the programme and develop new ideas for the future. That burst of good news gave me the spark to realise that even within the uncertainty of a global lockdown, Black Girl Fest was still very much an important vessel for the community.
So with that said, I introduce Black Girl Fest 2.0!
Our new vision is a world where our community is thriving. We’re on a mission to create access, learning and development for Black women, girls and non-binary people. We aim to inspire and empower our community, equipping them with the tools to flourish.
We’ve spent the past year redesigning our brand to give Black Girl Fest a fresh new look across all our digital content. We want to mirror where we’re at now and where we want to be through our overall design and style. For us, it’s important to ensure we’re learning and evolving with our growing community.
We’re building a platform and it’s dedicated to all of you. Expect new digital programmes, engaging editorial content, and access to new industries such as tech & business, and hair & beauty.
My dream is to one day own our very first space. Imagine a physical space that is Black-owned with creative studios for co-working, pop up shops and marketplaces with a HUGE events venue to run the biggest and baddest events this industry has ever seen. I know, super ambitious, but the belief I have in my community and business is so high, no one can tell me that Black women couldn’t make it happen.
I want Black Girl Fest to be the leading platform for all Black girl content, culture and conversation globally and for the first time in a long time I know exactly how I’m going to do it. I want more physical spaces and more safe digital spaces. I want to see more Black women winning in every field we incubate because we DESERVE it!
So as I look forward into the future of Black Girl Fest whilst reflecting on the past three years, I do not doubt that with the support and energy from our community, anything is possible and that possibility starts today.
I really hope you all enjoy what we have built so far and continue to join us as we build for the future. As a community, we’ve been through so much and my hopes are for Black Girl Fest to be that positive vessel for enjoyment, creativity and hope. Hope for a better world that puts Black women at the core.
To celebrate our relaunch we’re thrilled to announce The BGF Creative Fund, a new grant to support Black women and non-binary UK-based creatives affected by Covid-19. You can apply for it here.
Stay tuned for lots more exciting updates and announcements coming real soon.
P.s. Special acknowledgement to my friends, family, mentors and community for picking up my fallen pieces, providing the glue to put me back together and allowing Black Girl Fest to shine. I can’t thank you enough for your words, advice and love.
With love,
Nicole x
