When you walk into a store you’re often preoccupied with whatever product you want to buy. Most times, the last person on your mind is the store owner. But for the past year, Maggie and John Anderson were not only concerned with the store owner, but with whether or not he or she was of African descent.
Their project, the Empowerment Experiment –formerly the Ebony Experiment — grew from their desire to spread awareness about black businesses that provided high quality, economical merchandise and to dispel the myth held in black communities that black products and services are inferior to those sold by other ethnicities.
You see, the Andersons made a public choice to spend all of their money with black business owners and professionals or black manufactured products throughout the entire year of 2009. They estimate that they spent about 70% of their income or about $70,000 on black businesses last year. They got the idea from similar projects like the “No Impact†family, who lived a year without electricity to reduce their carbon footprint.
They also wanted to draw a parallel between the lack of black businesses and the high rates of unemployment, recidivism, and chronic illness in black communities, says John Anderson, 38, a financial consultant with AXA Advisors, and president of In Sight Financial Management, his own consultancy firm.
Though the experiment is over, their cause is unfinished. The goal of EE was never to connect to the mainstream, but to encourage black people to support black-owned businesses, says Maggie, also 38 and a stay-at-home mother of two with a law degree and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
They plan to re-launch their Web site to include a directory of black businesses nationwide, a ticker that will track the money spent at black companies, and allow users to rate the products and services listed on their site. Researchers at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management will release a study on the experiment this spring. Finally, by June the Andersons hope to publish a book chronicling their experience and the findings of the study.
Here, the Andersons discuss the successes that kept them empowered, the struggles that challenged them, and why they won’t be continuing the experiment.
BlackEnterprise.com: Do you consider the experiment successful?
Maggie Anderson: We do feel that we made
history. Nothing like this has ever been done before and we actually did it. I think we were very successful in finding those diamond in the rough businesses like my alarm company, Foscett’s Communications & Alarm Co, and some of the products I encountered that are sold in mass retailers, like Reggio’s Pizza and my new toothpaste, Sudantha, an herbal toothpaste produced by Link Natural Products.If spreading awareness was a measure of success, I think we were widely successful. My daughters’ pediatrician and her book club have all decided they are going to commit to spend 75% of their income with black businesses because of the Empowerment Experiment. I have at least 100 other instances like that of folks who are going to totally change their lives just because of our story.
What was the biggest disappointment?
John Anderson: One of the biggest disappointments…[was] the failure of one of the businesses that we supported quite a bit — our grocery store, Farmer’s Best Market. There was no reason for it to fail. That was really disheartening. We really took that failure to bed with us at night.
Why do you think the store closed?
Maggie: Every time I was in that store–and I was in that store all the time–it was empty. It was a big, full-scale grocery store. There was nothing wrong with it. All those people who came to the Empowerment Experiment meetings and who called in to the radio shows didn’t take the extra step to actually try and go into Farmer’s Best and support the owner.
Five blocks up the street there was a Greek-owned food and liquor store. It was dirty, the produce was rotten, and the meat smelled–the kind of place that wouldn’t survive a day in [a white community]. The parking lot was packed with black people. I really do believe that we suffer badly from this psychosis that our stuff is not as good as everyone else’s.
What is your response to the critics who say black businesses aren’t thriving because they have bad business principles and race has nothing to do with it?
John: We saw a lot of quality businesses that were doing the right things that just weren’t getting the level of support that we would have liked seen. If you analyze the failures of businesses across
all ethnic groups that would be one factor, but it stands to reason why in our community the failure rates are significantly higher and average receipts are significantly lower. All of that can not be ascribed to poor service.Do you plan to continue your experiment in 2010?
Maggie: It is painful not doing the experiment anymore. After we lost Farmer’s Best Market we did guerrilla-style grocery shopping. We’ve been living on convenience store and gas station food since August. As much as we want to [continue] we can’t keep living like that on an extended basis, especially with our daughters [Cara, 4, and Cori, 3]. But at least 50% of our spending will be with black businesses this year.
John: The bottom line is our lives are changed forever. The businesses that we supported throughout the year that are quality businesses in line with our mission, we want to see succeed and grow. We will continue to support them even if it is not geographically desirable to do so.
Note: Karriem Beyah, the former owner of Farmer’s Best Market plans to re-launch the store at a new Chicago location in February.