CJ Lloyd Webley is a writer who earns his keep working at Birmingham's Rep theatre.
But he was so moved by the protests and marches in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 that he decided to launch a new project in the city helping black entrepreneurs.
Called The Black Pounds Project, it offers mentoring, training and membership packages and has helped kickstart and boost the careers and businesses of burgeoning black entrepreneurs across Birmingham and the wider West Midlands.
The project has seen such success in its short life span that 28-year-old CJ is now looking to expand across the region and into other cities with Nottingham his most likely next target and a planned launch in the coming months
"I started it in July 2020 not long after the protests in Birmingham following the death of George Floyd," CJ explained.
"I saw there were people from different walks of life who wanted to do something to support the issues at hand but didn't really know how to, particularly if they weren't from a black or diverse background.
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"Sometimes they were shut down before they could even have an opinion or be able to understand some of the issues that were happening.
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"I wanted to see how I could leverage my career as an artist to bring people into the space so we could have those open conversations. I was acting more as a facilitator than actually having the insight into how businesses operate.
"We started with a mentorship programme which took eight businesses from not having things such as a website or social media presence to being fully fledged and which are now very much in a better place.
"It was about bringing all the people with experience into a single place and offering their expertise to the community and that's how it has grown."
CJ comes from an arts background and works as a freelance writer and director at The Rep theatre, running youth companies and writing and creating a few shows each year.
He previously founded and ran Sorrel Park Theatrical which put on creative writing classes for disadvantaged children in schools and even does a turn as a keyboard player at weddings and other functions.
He feels his experience as a writer has fed into the work he does at The Black Pounds Project, helping those businesses tell their stories in a way which increases their chances of accruing financial support.
The project is set up to support black entrepreneurs who may have struggled or even been unable in the past to access finance or business support by offering a visible presence to them.
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It has coaching, courses, access to a broad range of expert mentors and peer networking groups in order to share and develop ideas, something CJ describes as "a real community feel" which has supported more than 300 businesses.
Its next mentorship programme starts at the end of February.
Income is generated via corporate sponsorship and membership packages which are open to all and offer access to the project's resources.
Among the corporate backers are the British Business Bank whose 'Alone, together' report into entrepreneurship and diversity in the 海角视频 has helped to inform some of CJ's thinking.
Among its findings was that 49 per cent of Asian and other ethnic minority entrepreneurs cite difficulties getting finance as the reason for stopping work on their business ideas while the median productivity of black entrepreneurs' businesses is less than two thirds of their white counterparts.
Only half of black entrepreneurs meet their non-financial aims, compared to nearly 70 per cent of white entrepreneurs, the report said.
"When I think about the black community and the issues we are facing, we have to start creating our own spaces and opportunities to bring people in," CJ said.
"If you have a whole organisation that's set up to deal with the barriers that we believe, and external reports have suggested, exist then you cannot help but identify this is an area that needs to be addressed.
"I was running a business myself going into schools but when covid happened I didn't really know where to get the support. I thought if I felt like that then there must be others who also didn't know where to go."
He added: "There are some cultural aspects too. I don't like to piece religion in with this but it's very significant when it comes to people from a certain demographic.
"People might not be accessing finance because they are scared or they think loans are bad so it's about re-educating people about what good debt is.
"If you have a sustainable enterprise you might be able to grow that business rather than always looking for grant funding which is usually harder to access in this day and age."
Looking ahead, CJ is now planning to expand the service into new regions with Nottingham the most likely next target.
"We are very conscious of scaling up too quickly but the more members we have and are able to support the more sustainable the initiative will become.
"It is now about that income generation so we can start to move it forward, get people employed and create more opportunities.
"I haven't seen anyone else doing anything specifically in this targeted way. We have the formula and how to do it, we just need someone to run it in these new areas."