Purple Mai’a Foundation

About the Organization:

Over the last 5 years the Purple Maiʻa Foundation (PMF) has successfully run a number of statewide entrepreneurship and innovation programs that have empowered local, underserved, Native Hawaiian founders to generate over 50 new ideas and a dozen companies. They plan on using Gold Futures Challenge funds to specifically support their Hawaii FoundHer program, which is an accelerator program tailored specifically to the needs of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and/or Asian women and mothers starting businesses in five core markets of Hawaiʻi’s economy: Tech, Fashion, Health & Wellness, Food System/Restaurants, and Keiki/Education.

The Issue:

Women-led startups receive less than 2-3% of VC funding each year. Over the past decade, Latinx women-led startups raised only 0.32 percent; black women raised .0006 percent. Data for Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Asian and multiracial women does not seem available.

Nationwide studies show that women are the drivers of small business growth in the United States. As of 2019, 13 million women-owned businesses accounted for 42% of all businesses in the US, employing 9 million people and generating $1.9 trillion in revenue. Additional studies show investments in companies with female founders performed better than those with all-male founders. Businesses founded by women deliver 2x per dollar invested as those founded by men.

Women carry multiple responsibilities: raising children, maintaining homes, and pursuing careers. In Hawaiʻi, it is common for NHAAPI households to be multigenerational where women are caretakers of both children and elders. The cost of living and care is high, and the child and eldercare system is informal. This is why an unconstrained care stipend was a non-negotiable element of our program.

The Solution:

Hawaiʻi FoundHer is the first and only early-stage accelerator supporting NHAAPI women, providing both direct funding and mentorship. Our program is targeted toward women entrepreneurs looking to scale their early-stage businesses, with a focus on businesses that are at least 50% owned by Native Hawaiian and AAPI women. FoundHer works with businesses in the areas of technology, fashion, health & wellness, food systems, and keiki (children) & education—industries with clear, direct ties to the community.

FoundHer is specifically designed for the needs of NHAAPI women in Hawaiʻi, based upon findings from participants in the Purple Prize, and from the experience our AAPI program founders had as they grew their businesses and careers. When designing FoundHer, we took the time to interview small business owners and program stakeholders, identifying the resources that NHAAPI women need most.

FoundHer is a six-month business accelerator program. We provide non-dilutive grant capital and flexible family care stipends, designed for the multigenerational, informal care system in Hawaiʻi. We knew we had to include family care as a key component of the program, as existing accelerators do not support women holistically. We develop a bespoke business development curriculum tailored to the needs of the cohort. Experts lead workshops on topics including marketing, e-commerce, HR, fundraising, and more.

Manisha G. Bewtra, AICP

Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Manisha Bewtra, AICP (she/her) is Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
Manisha has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement.
Prior to her current role, she worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as a senior regional planner and the manager of the analytics team, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership where she was a statewide technical assistance provider, as an adjunct city planning instructor for Master’s degree program courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chandler, Arizona.
Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She has a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She currently serves as a member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section and is a member of the executive team for the Asian American and Political Islander Caucus for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Before moving to Tucson in the summer of 2020, she lived in the Boston area for twelve years. During her years in Melrose, Massachusetts, she served as a Human Rights Commissioner and subsequently as a City Councilor. When elected to the Melrose City Council, she became the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She, her husband, and her son felt welcomed and right at home in Tucson when they moved here – even in spite of a pandemic and searing summer heat.

Arnie Saiki

research, writer, program director

Broadly focusing on regional economic and geopolitical themes in the Asia and Pacific regions, Arnie Saiki is currently leading a working group on data, statistics and valuation in the Pacific. His book “Economic and Ecological Accounting: Towards Intemerate Values,” was published last year by the Pacific Conference of Churches, the Pacific Theological College and the University of the South Pacific.

Since the publication, this campaign has been introduced to the Ecological and Economic Justice program at the World Council of Churches and he is participating in a G8 Interfaith forum for the inclusion of Wellbeing indicators into our economic accounts.

While national statistics and ecological accounting normally fall under the purview of government, academic or international institutions, Arnie has been campaigning in democratizing our ecological data, seeking support for a proof-of-concept accounting program that would enable poor, impacted, and indigenous peoples to actively participate in how we account for our socio and economic biodiversity. Intemerate Accounting is an equation that helps to correct accounting disparities that have, to a large extent, excluded the Global South. Revising our accounting system can provide access and opportunities that cross wide campaign sectors, bringing hope, action and efficacy to reverse climate change, restore our ecological biodiversity, and redistribute global wealth more equitably.

Arnie has been actively promoting and working on global justice campaigns since 2007 when he received a “We the People” grant from the Hawai’i Council of the Humanities for his work on Hawai’i Statehood. He has organized conferences with Hawaiian national independence groups, managed the Save Rapanui campaign after the Chilean military forced a lockdown of Easter Islanders. Arnie spoke at the World Bank representing the Pacific Island Forum, and participated in discussions around regionalism in the Pacific. He was recently appointed the US-Pacific Diplomacy and Solidarity Mission for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), and is on the management team of the Deep Seabed Mining Campaign.

In 2011, Arnie received the blessing from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell to organize a counter-conference in Honolulu while APEC was there and coordinated the Moana Nui conferences, an international partnership between the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po. For the last ten years he has been campaigning on issues around trade, development, ecological resources, indigenous issues and militarization in the Pacific.

His essays, “TPP at the End of the Line: a briefing on economic cooperation and capacity building” was published in American Quarterly by John Hopkins University Press, and “Manifesting the Liquid Continent,” was published by Yunnan National University, as part of the 1st International conference on Asia and Pacific Ethnology and Anthropology.