S7E5: Building Community and Calling Out Bullsh!t with Erika Righter

That's What She Did Podcast

Erika Righter is a social worker-turned small business owner. Since coming to Colorado, she has worked with youth experiencing homelessness and in the foster care system, rural families, and with low-income older adults. In 2012, Erika founded Hope Tank, a gift store that gives back in the heart of the Baker neighborhood. She uses retail to connect the over 40,000 customers who come into Hope Tank every year, to organizations doing important work in our community. She served on the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Partnerships Commission, does consulting, and started an inclusive business directory called The Hope Slinger’s Guide.

In This Episode:

• Calling BS on fake social entrepreneurship
• The big role classism and racism play in social enterprise businesses
• What to look for when you want to do business with a business that says they are helping a community
• What it looks like to build a hyper-local community movement
• Why you need to ask what someone wants before you try to help them
• Why simply talking to each other is often the missing link in changing someone’s life

Episode Details:

06:00 - What is Hope Tank?

09:00 - How did Erika land on the idea of Hope Tank and then to the Hope Slingers?

14:00 - What was it like when Erika and her husband were unemployed and she was pregnant?

21:30 - What advice does Erika have about thriving in business while serving the community and why some community work is not always what the people need?

37:30 - What are the Hope Slingers?

42:00 - Erika RIghter’s end game

Follow Erika Righter on:

https://hopetank.org/

https://www.facebook.com/hopetank

https://www.instagram.com/hopetank/

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