Sharu Goodwyn assumed the role of Community Investment Manager for Office Depot in October 2020. In less than a year, she has made an enormous impact through her oversight of Elevate Together™ powered by Round It Up America®, a new nonprofit initiative designed to help accelerate the creation, growth and prosperity of Black and Hispanic-owned small businesses. The ODP Corporation (parent company to Office Depot) is the initiative’s founding partner and made an initial investment of $250,000, which helped launch the program in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and South Florida in early 2021. Through a partnership with the National Urban League’s (NUL) Entrepreneurship Centers and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), the initiative helps support Black and Hispanic small businesses with five or less employees.

Accelerating Minority-Owned Business Growth and Prosperity
Those are the facts, but they do not showcase the wonderful work being done through the Elevate Together™ initiative. The program directly supports Black and Hispanic small business owners with the mission of helping local economies, fostering job creation, and helping to close the racial wealth gap.

After the death of George Floyd and the social unrest that followed, Gerry Smith, CEO for The ODP Corporation, and the organization’s executive leadership team looked for a way to have an impactful and sustainable response to addressing racial equity. “Since Office Depot has a long history of serving the business community,” says Sharu, “it made sense for the company to try to level the playing field for minority-owned businesses, because that’s the way we could have the most impact in this space.”