The Ripple Effect: Furnishing Futures' Home Designs

We hope this London-based story during Women’s History Month (and our previous Cake Ventures blog) inspires you to consider new and different ways your skills and experience can reach beyond traditional boundaries to positively impact others and address critical issues. #womenshistorymonth

Emily Wheeler is no stranger to hard work and making a difference in her community. She’s an example of how one woman’s initiative can create a ripple effect across an industry and individual lives.

Most people believe access to social housing includes a minimum of home basics. However, less than 2% of social housing in the area where Wheeler is based is furnished. Most are an empty shell, referred to as furniture poverty - no pots, pans, bedding, even flooring, or a refrigerator. Wheeler describes this housing situation as surviving, not living.

Having worked on the frontline of social services in London for two decades, Wheeler launched Furnishing Futures from her kitchen in 2019. She was determined to address furniture poverty’s impact on domestic abuse survivors. Women with families living in temporary housing frequently have no access to their finances and no clear path forward to buy furniture.

Emily Wheeler, Founder of Furnishing Futures

Trained in interior design, Wheeler started taking second-hand furniture to the women living in empty homes in her spare time. Her efforts inspired other designers who began collaborating. Using her design skills and contacts, Wheeler collected more donations to fully furnish these healing homes, as she calls them, treating each home like one of her design projects. Industry leaders took notice. As a result, Soho House, DFS, Dunelm, Cox & Cox, and Olli Ella are just a few of the companies that now work with Furnishing Futures.

Referrals come from the local domestic abuse organizations, where Wheeler then works to set up a home. Assisting vulnerable families with a sense of safety in their new environment is essential, while offering women choices in their furnishings helps them feel ownership and pride in their housing. This combination goes a long way in boosting their well-being, helping to relieve the shame many victims feel, and aims to break the poverty cycle.

Furnishing Futures' core business also addresses sustainability in the industry. The charity provides a solution for excess furniture stock discarded by companies and when beautiful furniture is simply thrown away.

Reducing landfill issues while simultaneously eliminating furniture poverty are objectives Wheeler is determined to tackle. Her charity continues to grow and is currently working toward funding for additional warehouse space as well as opportunities for further expansion.

Learn more about Furnishing Futures and Emily Wheeler here. Or visit them on Instagram here.

Cake Ventures’ Female Founder Drives Layers of Change

We hope this feature during Women’s History Month (and our Furnishing Futures blog) inspires you to consider new and different ways your skills and experience can reach beyond traditional boundaries to positively impact others and address critical issues. #womenshistorymonth

This dynamic woman takes a different path than most individuals looking to invest in diverse company founders. Cake Ventures, the firm she launched in 2021, is diving deeper into diversity with a goal of driving demographic change.

Monique Woodard launched Cake Ventures to affect the “layers” of what she calls tomorrow’s internet users: the aging population (“by 2034, Americans over 65 will outnumber those under 18”), the earning power of women (“the original influencers”), and the “majority-minority” early adopters from Asian, Black, and Latino markets.

To address this powerful demographic shift, Cake Ventures raised a $17 million seed and pre-seed venture fund. A recent Forbes feature shares, “about 40% of its investments to date are led by women founders, and 40% by founders who identify as Black,” although it isn’t a prerequisite of the fund. Woodard sees this as a natural occurrence when you change who founders see across the investor table.

Despite her extensive entrepreneurial career building and selling technologies, time as a Venture Partner at 500 Startups, and a Venture Scout at LightSpeed Ventures, Woodard acknowledges the challenges of raising the fund. She tells Forbes, “raising a fund as a woman is like crawling through glass. Raising a fund as a Black woman is like crawling through glass with no clothes on, and then they pour fire ants all over you.”

Today, Cake Ventures’ portfolio includes a wide variety of companies, including Pamper, which offers sustainable, collectible boxes marrying fine art with nail designs using only vegan and cruelty-free products. (Consumers can order a Mystery box of Claude Monet designs.) Rares is an SEC-regulated stock market where you can invest in sneakers and other collectibles. Guaranteed focuses on hospice care, blending at-home treatment with cutting-edge technology. And Serif is a global members club for LGBTQ+ members and creators.

In addition to her investment fund, another respected skill of Woodard’s is her depth of research and data. In 2020, she authored Gray New World, a report that outlines the opportunities, shifting trends, and tech requirements in healthcare, technology, and retirement for today’s aging population.

Outside of the diverse entrepreneurs Woodard attracts, her efforts draw the attention and investment of extraordinary women such as self-made entrepreneur and investor Arlan Hamilton, founder of Backstage Capital (who built her venture fund while homeless). High-profile philanthropic leaders, like Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, have also invested, as has Screendoor, Bank of America, and Cendana Capital.

Learn more about Monique Woodard, Cake Ventures, and its portfolio of companies here. Listen to her podcast interview on Venture Unlocked.