Aurora James proudly lives between two worlds—altruism and capitalism.

The universes intersected in a post on her Instagram in 2020 calling major retailers to support Black businesses following the brutal killing of George Floyd and subsequent social justice rebellion leaving many corporations asking what they’ll do to point out solidarity with the Black community.

“I’m asking you to commit to purchasing 15% of your products from Black owned businesses,” James wrote. “So a lot of your businesses are built on Black spending power. So a lot of your stores are arrange in Black communities. So a lot of your sponsored posts are seen on Black feeds. That is the least you may do for us. We represent 15% of the population and we want to represent 15% of your shelf space.”

Not only did the businesses answer the decision, they sounded the alarm to other brand partners for support, prompting James to found the Fifteen Percent Pledge (FPP) nonprofit. Now, it’s poised to Forbes “shift over $14 billion to Black entrepreneurs and businesses.” Because of FPP, greater than 625 Black-owned businesses have been supported by the 29 pledge-taking corporations including Nordstrom, Macy’s and Sephora.

But that isn’t enough for James—she’s raising the bar once more.

She recently announced the launch of the Friends and Family Collective to make sure Black founders have the resources and support they require to adequately fund and scale their brands. 

The Collective, under the leadership of James and Alisa Williams, a partner on the private equity firm VMG Partners, has already invested $25 million in brands like Ghetto Gastro, Beauty Stat, Melanin Hair Care, Proudly, and Danessa Myricks, in accordance with an announcement shared with ESSENCE. The partnership goals to tap into an $850-million fund specifically earmarked for Black business bolstering. And it was all birthed from good quaint authenticity.

“Alisha emailed me a few days after I posted the thought of the pledge and told me to let her know if there’s ever anything that she will be able to do,” James tells ESSENCE. “And it was very fascinating to me because as soon as I launched the pledge, there have been quite a few different enterprise capital and personal equity firms that reached out, and lots of them spent lots of time telling me in regards to the commitments they’d made. But what I believed was really disheartening was that once I asked to see the investments that they’d made historically in Black-owned businesses, most of them really had nothing to share.”

James continued: “With VMG specifically and the work that Alisha has done, they’ve at all times been really within the forefront of interested by a lot of different founders and a lot of different ideas and methods to get a greater product assortment onto the shelves of shops across the country. And I believe for me, I’m really within the intersection between altruism and capitalism. I believe you can do the appropriate thing and have it’s a extremely incredible business. And finding groups of people that truly imagine that and aren’t just making commitments and never following through is de facto a part of my passion on this planet.”