In the past five years, crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have revolutionized the way entrepreneurs go about raising capital for new business ventures. Although these sites have helped turn countless of startup pipe-dreams into a reality, a significant number of entrepreneurs, Blacks in particular, aren’t necessarily feeling the same love…until now.

“I think it is important that we encourage non-profits and social enterprises to raise resources on our platform to address social problems facing the African-American community,” BlackStartup CEO Nathan Bennett-Fleming told NewsOne.

BlackStartup takes a standard approach to crowdfunding: Each project featured on the platform is accompanied with  a project description, specific goals, and a background on the founders. And similar to other sites, participants only receive the money if they reach their complete goal. ”There is no specific type of businesses that we are attempting to promote. We want to support projects, ideas, and causes that are broadly connected to the African-American community,” said Bennett-Fleming.

The site’s Monday launch premiered with seven projects, including a math curriculum taught through playing the piano, a family business that makes homemade hair products, and a website featuring social commentary on daily news.

The Washington, D.C.-based company has had no problem gaining praise and capital, with the site snagging the coveted Yale Entrepreneur Institute’s Fellowship, which doles out $20,000 in capital seed money, an elite mentor, and a 10-week boot camp in New Haven, Ct.

While BlackStartup focuses primarily on supporting Black causes through funding, Bennett-Fleming says he and the founders have the ultimate goal of expanding to help other marginalized groups. ”We are considering broadening our approach to include other minority groups on our platform,” he said. ”We want to use these new technologies to address the Black entrepreneurial gap, the Black opportunity gap, and other economic challenges facing the Black community as well as other marginalized communities.”

Michigan workers were hit hard by the Great Recession but the state’s African American workers continue to suffer a far higher unemployment rate, a new Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief finds, with Michigan’s black unemployment rate the highest among the 24 states where it can be measured. 

In Ongoing Joblessness in Michigan: Unemployment rate for African Americans tops in nation, more than double the state’s white rate, EPI researchers Douglas Hall and Mary Gable find that the African American unemployment rate in Michigan reached 18.7 percent—nearly one in five of the state’s black workers—in the fourth quarter of 2012, about two-and-a-half times that of the white unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

The black unemployment rate in Michigan was 4.7 percentage points higher than the national black unemployment rate of 14 percent and ranked highest among the 24 states with large enough black populations to measure unemployment. Michigan’s white unemployment rate was ninth highest in the nation.

“This is an alarming trend that highlights the growing inequity in our state,’’ said Michigan League for Public Policy President & CEO Gilda Z. Jacobs. “For Michigan to recover from the very long recession we’ve suffered, we need an economy that works for all. Policymakers must address this tremendous disparity.’’

Black unemployment is concentrated in urban areas with very high unemployment rates and few job opportunities. In such a job environment, it is difficult to find work. In 2012, 46.5% of unemployed black workers were unemployed for more than 26 weeks—much higher than the share of white unemployed workers (41.6%) who are long-term unemployed. In 2011, the Michigan Legislature cut the weeks of available Unemployment Insurance from 26 weeks to 20 weeks, causing hardship for many unemployed black workers as they continue to look for work.

“Until our state recovers, the Michigan Legislature needs to restore the traditional period of unemployment benefits back to 26 weeks,’’ Jacobs said.

Another reason for Michigan’s high black unemployment rate is that in the Detroit area many of the available jobs are in suburbs that are inaccessible by public transportation to Detroit residents. Michigan needs to continue to develop a regional public transportation system in Southeast Michigan that can help connect workers with jobs.

The report also finds that Michigan’s white workers suffered during the recession with nearly three straight years (from the first quarter of 2009 through the third quarter of 2011) on unemployment at 9 percent or higher. Only Nevada had a longer stretch of white unemployment over 9 percent.

The report concludes that Michigan’s recovery, spurred by the successful bailout of the auto industry, has been impressive, yet one in five black workers remain unemployed.

“Michigan’s economy has been down a rough road for everybody,’’ said Doug Hall, the report’s coauthor, “but what this study shows is that far more black workers have been left on the side of the highway.’’