In honor of his civic leadership and community involvement, a St. Louis couple has committed to five years’ worth of funding to continue Arch Grant’s Donald M. Suggs Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award.
Suggs, publisher and executive editor of the St. Louis American, was first honored by Arch Grants with its 2020 Entrepreneur Award at the organization’s eighth annual Arch Grants Gala. John and Alison Ferring chaired the award committee, which also led an effort that year to raise funds for two grant awards in Suggs’ honor for 2021.
“This is just another example of the extraordinary civic leadership and steadfast willingness to invest in a more inclusive and equitable community that the Ferrings have generously provided over the years.” —Donald M. Suggs
Emily Lohse-Busch, executive director of Arch Grants, noted Arch Grants will increase this year from 2021’s amount of $50,000 to $100,000 per honoree, so the next five Donald M. Suggs Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards will be funded through the Ferring Family Foundation.
Each year, the award will be given to a Black entrepreneur already in St. Louis or who plans to relocate to the city.
“For us, having a grant named for somebody like Dr. Suggs is so powerful,” Lohse-Busch said. “Not just in the real funds that it will give another company but also [because] these are all founders who [look to] Dr. Suggs [as a] role model … he’s been an extremely active and engaged and influential civic leader, and I think there’s multiple benefits to this in terms of our mission alignment.”
Alison Ferring points not only to Suggs’ civic engagement, but his entrepreneurial spirit as an oral surgeon who took over The St. Louis American.
Among his numerous accomplishments and awards, Suggs was the first African American to serve as president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of St. Louis; was president of the Alexander-Suggs Gallery of African Art from 1970 to 1989; was chairman of the Poor People’s March-On-Washington in 1968; and was chief of oral surgery at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and became the first Black person to serve as an associate clinical professor at St. Louis University Dental School.
Alison Ferring also emphasized how important it is for young Black entrepreneurs to know there are local resources to help them on their journey.
“There’s so much exciting stuff being done by these millennials, and we just want to be the wind beneath their wings and see them take on this mantle of leadership, that they seem to be doing now, in the future,” Alison Ferring said. “So, I feel very optimistic.”
John Ferring echoed that sentiment, noting they’ve focused on education, diversification and leveling the playing field within the entrepreneurial world.
“When we saw the response to the Donald M. Suggs grant last year, it kind of made us think that this is something that needs to be done on an ongoing basis,” he said. “… Don has been a good friend for a long, long time, but has become even a better friend over the last 15 years, since we live in the same building. We see him pretty regularly and just felt that this was something that we wanted to do to kind of honor everything that he has done in St. Louis and all the groundbreaking things that he’s done.”
He acknowledged Suggs’s humble nature and noted that while he doesn’t talk about himself a lot, John Ferring believes it’s important for the people of St. Louis to know what an extraordinary individual he is.
“This is just another example of the extraordinary civic leadership and steadfast willingness to invest in a more inclusive and equitable community that the Ferrings have generously provided over the years,” Suggs said in response to the announcement that the award would continue for five years.
The first Donald M. Suggs Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award last year went to St. Louis-based entrepreneurs Tara Nesbitt, David Rygiol and Justin Trusty who founded Harmonee. It’s a mobile application software company that allows businesses to pose questions to targeted groups of people in exchange for donating funds to nonprofits that those people support, raising funds to support community groups and giving businesses valuable consumer insights.
The second Donald M. Suggs Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award went to Derek Canton, founder of Paerpay, an application software platform that allows merchants to accept contactless payments without installing new hardware, changing processors or downloading apps. The company was originally founded in Boston.
Lohse-Busch said because the individual grant amounts are increasing from $50,000 to $100,000, they anticipate there will be around 20 honorees this year, one of those specifically receiving the Donald M. Suggs Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award.
The application process for 2022’s Arch Grants begins March 18 and closes April 15. Of the applications received, 40 to 50 companies will be invited to a live pitch followed by a Q&A session with the competition committee.
Awardees will then be notified in September and announced at Arch Grants Annual Gala Fundraiser.
“Arch Grants is uniquely positioned to empower entrepreneurs at an early stage,” Gabe Angieri, Arch Grants’ director of development and strategy, said. “And building a more vibrant inclusive, entrepreneurial ecosystem in St. Louis through this award and others that we will provide in future years is mission critical for us.”