Opening Doors to Employment: Imani Global Logistics Serves the Community with Flexible Funding provided by TEDC

Table of Contents:

Seeking to Build Community Resilience
Providing Employment Opportunities to Those Who Need Less Traditional Options
Taking New Knowledge into a New Startup
Lowering Costs and Building Assets with Community Funding Options
Focused on Future Growth and Mentoring Others

​​With years of experience in healthcare, Nancy Grayson, Ph.D., didn’t start out with a desire to own a business. But her drive to help people find jobs led her to launch her own delivery company. Her current venture, Imani Global Logistics, delivers vital medicine to hospitals, utilizing vehicles purchased through funding from TEDC Creative Capital.

Seeking to Build Community Resilience

For nearly 25 years, Nancy Grayson, Ph.D., was a public health professional, focusing on cardiovascular diseases and strokes. “I worked with minority communities because they are disproportionately impacted by cardiovascular illnesses due mainly to social determinants of health, such as access to healthy food, employment opportunity, their environment, and everyday life stresses,” she explains.

While she had worked for a leading global cardiovascular health organization, Nancy knew there were still challenges to helping people the way she hoped to do. Then, when COVID hit, she saw the lingering suffering that many communities faced, and she began considering where she could make a greater impact.

“I wanted to take a step back and figure out what really makes communities resilient. These communities were very vulnerable to all the aftermath of COVID. They were dying in disproportionate numbers. The level of suffering was too high. That’s what made me feel that maybe if I stepped in a different space, I could make a difference.”

Providing Employment Opportunities to Those Who Need Less Traditional Options

Spurred on by the desire to make an impact, Nancy decided to become an employer, focusing on hiring individuals who may have a difficult time finding and maintaining a career in the mainstream market. She formed a company called Rafiki Global Logistics and Delivery, which specialized in delivering packages door-to-door.

“I specifically sought to employ people who have been underserved in many ways, whether it’s access to health, access to healthy food, access to good jobs, transportation, you name it,” Nancy explains. Her first venture, Rafiki, grew vibrantly—at one point delivering over a million packages a year, with a fleet of about 30 vehicles and numerous employees. Her success was rooted, she says, in her background in public health, where she learned the importance of removing barriers that hinder employees from landing and keeping their jobs.

“Coming from a background in public health, I strive to remove barriers,” Nancy says. “Many people want to come to work and do a good job, but other things get in the way. I put a lot of resources into trying to eliminate those barriers that keep individuals from coming to work.”

Taking New Knowledge into a New Startup

Nancy learned a great deal from her first startup. “It taught me what makes a company successful, and the struggles of small businesses and the cost of doing business, which is usually a huge barrier to enter,” she says. Juggling details was often tough—it wasn’t always easy to meet business demands, pay insurance for vehicles, and ensure the fleet of delivery vans stayed in good shape. “I learned that big is not always better,” she explains. 

With a desire to streamline operations, Nancy restructured the company and shifted its focus to serving a market that aligned with her experience in healthcare. Her new venture, Imani Global Logistics, specialises in delivering medicines and pharmaceuticals to hospitals. While similar in scale than her first business, Imani is applying the lessons she’s learned and making thoughtful choices about her partnerships and clients to position the company for long-term success.

Lowering Costs and Building Assets with Community Funding Options

As Nancy moved forward with Imani Global Logistics, she decided to change her approach to one of the key elements of her company—the delivery vehicles. Her previous company leased its vehicles, and the costs quickly added up, diminishing profits. She wanted to own her vehicles instead, especially now that her new business needed fewer of them. “I wanted at least to build assets for the company and also to control costs,” she says.

So, Nancy turned to TEDC Creative Capital for assistance. She’d heard about the community funding institution through her ongoing community connections in healthcare and business. “I knew of TEDC Creative Capital as a smart strategy of providing funds to those that have limited barriers to entry, unlike traditional capital that someone who has few assets would never qualify for,” she says.

The process of gathering her financial documents and meeting the loan requirements felt rigorous at times, but the work was worth it. “TEDC fits people like myself very well,” Nancy explains. “Providing those documents required diligence, and I appreciated the details that went into the process to make sure that you are investing that money in a company that is solid.” 

She also appreciates that TEDC offers a more doable approach to funding, with a reasonable interest rate and clear, upfront communication and transparency that make it easy for her to stay on top of her loan. “Everyone who was involved in that process was great,” she says. “If I needed something, they responded. I appreciated that.”

Focused on Future Growth and Mentoring Others

With her funding through TEDC, Nancy is now looking forward to solidifying her business and scaling it to employ more people. She also plans to be a resource for other new businesses. “I want to be able to mentor other businesses that are coming up,” she says.

For those starting up their business, Nancy says it’s a good idea to attend a business incubator program and take advantage of the educational classes TEDC offers. “Sometimes, when people are looking for funding, they’re not strategic enough,” she notes. Getting educated benefits new entrepreneurs, enabling them to develop effective strategies and access funding more easily from community partners like TEDC.

TEDC Creative Capital serves small businesses and startups to find their footing and thrive in Oklahoma. As a community development financial institution (CDFI), TEDC offers flexible, non-traditional capital and funding options, along with foundational entrepreneurial educational programs, to equip local business owners to successfully navigate their needs and establish a foothold in their local economy.