{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Behind The Work by Jessica Santana","title":"The Funding Gap Nobody Talks About: Shawna Young on Closing the Gap for Founders","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2698,"description":"Shawna Young has built her career around a simple but radical belief: that investing in underinvested founders isn't charity — it's the multiplying force that changes entire communities. It's not just about writing a check. It's about what happens when the right person finally gets the room, the resources, and the relationships they were always capable of using. This week, Shawna joins Jessica on Behind The Work.Shawna is the CEO of Camelback Ventures, a New Orleans-based nonprofit accelerator committed to increasing access to opportunity for entrepreneurs of color and women — providing early-stage fellows with seed funding, mentorship, and community at the \"friends and family\" stage of their journey. She came to Camelback from Ada Developers Academy, where she served as interim CEO, and has held executive leadership roles at the Scratch Foundation, MIT, Duke University, and Durham Public Schools. She holds an MBA from MIT, a master's in science education from UNC Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Howard University. In this conversation, we get into what it actually takes to fund early-stage founders the system has historically overlooked — and why the gap between a good idea and a funded one is rarely about talent. We talk about what Camelback's fellowship model gets right that traditional venture capital gets wrong, what it looks like to build a startup ecosystem from the inside out, and why Shawna would take a Rolodex over a million dollars every time — because in underinvested communities, the missing ingredient isn't always capital. It's connection. We also get into her own leadership journey — what it taught her to watch her parents build and sacrifice for a business for over 35 years, and how that shaped the way she thinks about the founders she now serves. We talk about what she learned stepping into Camelback during a founder transition, what it means to honor a vision while making it your own, and what the hardest parts of this...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/BeWs27ZBOKNAjZ63FE09H0yIOg2VSU3UImwarqjXJpw/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80OGIx/MGUxYjE5N2I1ODIx/NTdlM2UyNGRlYjg1/MmFiZS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}