Julia Boboc

From Senator to Small Business Owner, How Akasha Lawrence Spence is Giving Back to her Community

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After getting coffee at her local coffee shop, and getting her hair done at the salon around the corner, Akasha Lawrence Spence goes to a development in her neighborhood—a place where anyone can sit, work, or talk. Places like these, Spence says, are energy. “Small businesses are like an engine of a community. They make it run; they keep it hot.”

Spence has started her own small businesses before—a clothing store in Brooklyn, a real estate business, a business that keeps coffee shops open after hours. Now, she’s using her entrepreneurship experience to help new small business owners through her community development firm, Fifth Element.               

She defines Fifth Element as a development that helps historically marginalized communities gain wealth through property ownership. She meets with small business owners and gives them financial advice and helps them create plans for their businesses’ futures.

Spence says she knows the struggles and challenges of entrepreneurship and didn’t have an advisor through most of her ventures. Knowing how difficult that was, she was inspired to help others.

“Because it is oftentimes such a lonely enterprise, it’s harder to see places where you need to tighten up. But it’s also sometimes harder to see places where you can grow,” Spence says, “So I think it’s important to have somebody who understands where you’ve been, who understands the unique challenges, who can come in and be able to support you.”

Lately, Spence has been working with Shawn Powell, a cosmetologist in Portland who’s looking to open her own salon. Powell says Spence’s straightforwardness and proactive mindset were exactly what she needed to make her business better.

“As a Black woman living in Oregon, I don’t have anybody to show me exactly how to open up a business,” Powell says, “Akasha, she helped me a lot. She’s so detail-oriented, and I think that’s something that a lot of people miss.”

In the future, Spence is hoping to help more people like Powell and create more equity in small business communities, but she knows it won’t happen overnight.

“It’s a work in progress. I think we take steps toward crafting successful communities. But there has been so much harm, that it’s going to take us much longer to get to what we consider healthy and equitable communities for everyone.”