Global, Grand Rapids-based insurance broker, Acrisure, is partnering with celebrities Ciara and Russell Wilson on a joint venture focused on bringing more insurance and financial resources to minority businesses and diverse communities.
The project, named Evolution Advisors LLC, will provide greater access and distribution of insurance products to minority-owned businesses. According to the Senate Committee on Small Business, groups within the Minority Business Enterprise accounted for more than 50% of the two million new businesses started in the United States and created 4.7 million jobs.
"We're rethinking and reworking the ways that we identify customers, and a lot of that has to do with identifying customers that we would just never natural reach through our own networks of people," Elliott Bundy, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Acrisure said, "We think this has huge applicability to more diverse audiences to minority-owned businesses that for a variety of reasons might not have the same relationships with traditional insurance carriers that other non-minority-owned businesses might."
Bundy said the joint venture between Acrisure, Ciara and Wilson is a "true partnership," noting that the grammy-award-winning singer and NFL Super Bowl champion are each founding parterners and equity owners.
"We have two really well-known individuals who in their non-professional lives, either off the stage or off the football field, certainly are known for philanthropic and other community impact efforts. As we build this business we’re going to truly build this together, and we think they have a tremendous opportunity to help guide us in the right direction toward what making an impact means," Bundy said.
Ciara and Wilson were introduced to Acrisure through a long-time friend and said in a statement they want to help bring ownership to communities.
"We’re excited to partner with Acrisure on this venture. We believe in the power of ownership and our hope is that through this partnership, we can help create a path for diverse communities to build up their own businesses and infrastructure. It’s always been important for us to give back to the community and now, more so than ever, we recognize that minority-owned businesses need to be afforded more opportunities," they said.
Bundy told WGVU his team is still expanding the project and will release new information about Evolution Advisors in the near future.
