One of the biggest financial DEI pledges to the Black community is now coming to an end.
Goldman Sachs announced its Launch initiative that focused on a $1 billion commitment to companies led, founded, and owned by women and people of color. Now, six years after it’s advent, the effort is being shuttered to focus on other worthy causes. The reason? They accomplished their goal.
According to the initiative’s web page, the company “invested capital in companies with diverse and gender-balanced leadership through GS Growth, partnered with clients to invest in investment managers with at least one diverse General Partner across venture capital, growth equity, and private equity strategies; provided access to the Launch With GS Entrepreneur Cohort, connecting founders to networks and industry expertise to accelerate their company’s growth while navigating the evolving business landscape.”
Per a recent Fortune report, Goldman fulfilled the $1 billion investment promise in June 2023, the accomplishment just marked by a quiet website update with the details.
Per Fortune, Goldman is now focusing on its One Million Black Women initiative, (OMBW), a $10 billion investment to bolster Black women over the next 10 years.
“Given all that’s happened over the course of the last year, we’ve done a lot of talking at the firm—and even more listening—to help us figure out how we can do more to end the racial inequity and the gaps that have existed in society for well too long,” Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon exclusively told ESSENCE in 2021 when OMBW was initially announced.
He adds: “What we’re trying to do is to set up the infrastructure, the commitment, and the resources to have something that’s sustainable over a long period of time to really make a difference. If after six months from now people are going to say, ‘Okay, where’s the beef,’ the response is going to be, ‘We’re just getting started.’ There’s a tendency with these things for companies to make an announcement and then for it to fade away. If we had said $500 million, we would have done some good things for a year, but it wouldn’t have the tangible impact that we’re really trying to have… Impact comes with sustained effort over a long period of time. We’re very prepared for that.”
