A new initiative called My Black Receipt is pushing support of African-American-owned businesses by motivating consumers to spend $5 million shopping Black by July 6, and turn it into more than a one-time purchase.
My Black Receipt asks people to upload their receipts onto its website, and the results will be released after July 6. It was started by Black upStart, an organization founded by Kezia Williams that trains aspiring Black entrepreneurs.
The goal of My Black Receipt is to have Americans “put their receipts where their protest is,” Williams said. “When you invest and purchase from a Black-owned business, what you’re really doing is strengthening the Black community.”
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My Black Receipt will help measure the impact and also allow Black businesses to advertise themselves on the site’s preferred shopping list, which has over 7,000 businesses listed.
“July 6th is the day before Blackout Day, which is the day where other organizers have called upon Black people to withdraw their spending from the economy to show the power of the Black Dollar,” Williams said.
Yelp has teamed with My Black Receipt on a new feature that allows businesses to identify themselves as Black-owned and appear in “Black-owned” search results.
A report with all the data will be released after the campaign ends.
“We are going to be able to tell what sectors people bought from. We’ll be able to tell what city they purchased in. We’ll be able to tell if they bought from brick and mortar spaces or online spaces,” Williams said. “So we’re going to use that data to really inform the population of what happens when we have concentrated buying activity and we’re going to upgrade the site so that people can track their Black spending throughout the year.”
Whether or not My Black Receipt reaches its goal of $5 million, she said it just brings awareness to more Black-owned businesses and spurs people to not just buy from those businesses when it’s a trend.
“I want this to be more than just a flashy headline. I really want this to be a lifestyle,” Williams said.
– Contributing: Alicia Lee, CNN.com