Pow Wow Pitch is a grassroots community of Indigenous entrepreneurs across Turtle Island that was formed to offer a secure, supportive, encouraging, and empowering platform for inspiration, education, mentoring, celebration, and reconciliation through entrepreneurship.
The Pow Wow Pitch community offers a platform for business owners to access opportunities and resources as well as support for company expansion. They provide on-demand access, live learning sessions, and access to free tools, resources, and opportunities to reach more customers.
The Pow Wow Roots Creating Opportunities
The founder of Pow Wow Pitch, Sunshine Tenasco, belongs to the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. She started Pow Wow Pitch because entrepreneurship is a big part of Indigenous heritage and is the path to self-sufficiency.
She is trying to reawaken the Indigenous community to entrepreneurship, which they call trade. The Pow Wow program encourages every Indigenous entrepreneur in the community to take action on their entrepreneurial ideas and build businesses rooted in Indigenous culture.
Through programmes and tools grounded in community leadership and volunteering, Pow Wow Pitch enriches, develops, and accelerates growth for current and potential Indigenous entrepreneurs in a sustainable way.
They seek to offer resources, initiatives, and platforms to help Indigenous entrepreneurs launch and expand successful, long-lasting businesses with a positive social impact.
Indigenous Collective Impacting Success.
The Pow Wow Pitch works towards a collective impact and success as a community by and for Indigenous entrepreneurs. Their initiatives include training and mentorship for business growth and a platform for Indigenous business owners to attract investors.
As a participant in Dragons’ Den, Sunshine understands the importance of the courage and confidence mentors provide to continue the entrepreneurial journey. It is this sense of self-belief that she tries to instill in her fellow aspiring entrepreneurs through the Pow Wow Pitch.
Pow Wow Pitch is a pitch competition for Indigenous entrepreneurs across Turtle Island that attracts vendors, artists, business builders, and innovators from across industries looking to start a business or grow to the next level.
The Pow Wow Pitch Startup Program supports Indigenous entrepreneurs with on-demand and live training, free tools and resources, and mentorship opportunities. These programs are available for people starting up, operating, and scaling up their businesses. In addition, they stream these resources on their social media channels, ensuring they will remain available for entrepreneurs’ future references.
The Latest Initiatives for scaling up
While planning their long-term and scalable impact, Pow Wow Pitch formulated many new programs for Indigenous entrepreneurs. They launched the Learning Series, Podcast Series, Alumni Network, Pow Wow Pitch Box, and established the Indigenous Entrepreneur Awards. All these initiatives help entrepreneurs get recognized for their work and thereby contribute to the growth of entrepreneurs.
They formed an Advisory Board composed of Indigenous leaders from the community to help steer, support, and steward the community’s growth and its impact.
Their Alumni Network kicked off by pitching their funds, knowledge, and resources to support the next generation of Indigenous entrepreneurs. The collective will introduce an alumni-directed Seed Fund for emerging Indigenous entrepreneurs as the Alumni Network and resources grow.
The Pow Wow Pitch Podcast interviews some of the most successful Indigenous makers, creators, and entrepreneurs to share their experiences, lessons learned, and advice with aspiring entrepreneurs.
Pow Wow Pitch Box allows them to distribute products and services through their mailer and partner community.
The Indigenous Entrepreneur Awards, presented by Pow Wow Pitch, recognize and celebrate excellence and outstanding impact in Indigenous entrepreneurship by Indigenous-owned businesses across Turtle Island. Eight entrepreneurial entrepreneurs who truly embody Indigenous icons of the generation are honored for their perseverance, growth, influence, and leadership.
Acknowledging The Indigenous Roots
Pow Wow is a place to meet, dance, sing, and honor the Indigenous culture and trade. Indigenous people can make a difference in their communities across Turtle Island and the world. Pow Wow Pitch is their platform to grow their social impact and support one another as a community.
Pow Wow Pitch is a nonprofit organization that derives all of its funding through sponsorships from companies and organizations. Through business leadership, financial assistance, and volunteerism, they collaborate with their partners to have a long-lasting impact on the communities they serve.
Pow Wow Pitch is a platform that works to grow their social impact and support one another as a community. To know more about their programs and initiatives, visit their website at https://www.powwowpitch.org/.
The Indigenous community and entrepreneurial initiatives are working to boost the economy and its people. To know more about these ventures and their initiatives, subscribe to Indigenous SME Business Magazine lnkd.in/gBMWGCHX and for the latest updates, check our Twitter page @IndigenousSme.
