LEHI — The Utah Black Chamber and customer messaging innovator Podium announced the launch of a new online portal Wednesday to help consumers connect with local Black-owned businesses.
The Utah Black Pages is designed to enable customers to easily find and support Black-owned businesses across the state. The Utah Black Chamber and Black Lives Matter Utah said that over the past 10 years, both groups have hosted similar lists of companies on their websites. The Black Pages combines those efforts in a new online tool both organizations are hoping will help make it easier for people and businesses to connect.
Black Chamber director and marketing chairwoman Karen Rodriguez said the portal is the continuation of a yearslong effort to create a centralized resource that features not just Black-owned storefront businesses but a wider variety of for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
“We’re working to bridge the gap with people who want to learn about and support Black business through being customers, or participating in a conversation with a Black organization,” Rodriguez said. “Instead of having to look all over the web, we wanted to create a singular place to go.”
Rodriguez said businesses interested in being included on the Black Pages can fill out a form on the site to be considered. Listings are open to commercial endeavors as well as nonprofits that are Black-owned or Black-led.
Rodriguez said Black-owned businesses in Utah currently number at least 200 and are on a growth arc. The Black Chamber, she said, has multiple programs aimed at continuing to build that network, support and cultivate workplace diversity, and offer education resources to Utah business that are working to build diversity and equity in their ranks.
To that end, Rodriguez said the Black Chamber is close to completing a diversity playbook that will be made available to business owners and human resource professionals looking for guidance on how to reach diversity goals.
Utah Black Chamber founder James Jackson III said developing new resources to help Utah-based Black-owned businesses has been the focus of the organization since its work began over a decade ago as the Utah African American Chamber of Commerce.
“Building resources that help support Black-owned businesses has been the central focus of the Utah Black Chamber since we first began,” Jackson said in a statement. “We are grateful for Podium’s support and are proud to partner with them to create this central webpage, which will offer people across the state an easy place to find Black businesses and support them by purchasing their products and services.”
Black Lives Matter Utah founder Lex Scott said she hopes the effort will help create new opportunities and boost the bottom line for the state’s Black-owned businesses.
“We believe that it is crucial to support Black-owned businesses and Black business owners,” Scott said in a statement. “We are appreciative of Podium and the Utah Black Chamber for this opportunity to expand the database of black-owned businesses and to help these business owners gain new opportunities, as well as potential increases in revenue.”
Podium launched in 2014 as a tool to mediate online customer reviews for brick-and-mortar businesses but has since grown into a multitool suite that includes customer messaging, mobile payments, webchat, online reviews and customer feedback using messaging channels that customers actually use and trust. The company has been on an explosive growth arc, boasts a client list approaching 50,000 and announced a $125 million Series C funding round earlier this year.
Podium co-founder and CEO Eric Rea said helping put the new portal together was a perfect fit for the company.
“Podium is all about supporting and bringing people to local businesses, so we are in a perfect position to help raise awareness and improve connections to Black-owned businesses in our local area,” Rea said in a statement. “We are enthusiastic about working with the Utah Black Chamber and Black Lives Matter Utah in helping however we can to bring real change.”