When asked why she founded The Initiative, an accelerator program designed specifically for women in the cannabis industry, Amy Margolis has a very simple answer: “Because it is unequal.”
“It’s important in any industry for us to be working toward gender equality,” she says. “Cannabis is really no different.”
As an attorney with Greenspoon Marder and executive director of the Oregon Cannabis Association, Margolis says her journey to starting The Initiative was a “natural progression” from her time watching women in the cannabis space and feeling she could help make connections on investment opportunities to help them succeed.
Margolis says she has seen firsthand how even in an industry as seemingly progressive as marijuana, women-owned businesses still have difficulties in getting investment funding. In total, Margolis says studies show that only 2.2% of money from venture capitalists go to women.
“We like to fund people who look like us, and right now men control capital and we are looking to change that,” she says. “We should not let the inherent gender bias in capital prevent women from getting funding in this industry.”
At The Initiative, which launches this fall, eight women-owned businesses will go through a three-month business accelerator program to help fill any knowledge gaps the owners may have in their business skills. Margolis says she will bring in a syndicate of investors at the end to hear the pitches and invest in the new companies.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be in a position of some power, but I can think very clearly of being treated differently than my male counterparts,” she says.
Margolis says she is excited to help make the industry more representative of the general population. She also encourages women to get involved in the cannabis space and claim their “rightful place” as leaders in this emerging industry.
“My advice is they should do it,” she says. “There’s so much opportunity here. We are very much at the beginning of this.”