Katrina High knows what it means to be poured into. She grew up in one of the toughest projects in Philadelphia, Richard Allen Project Homes, and was able to turn herself into a generational wealth builder. She knows that wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for organizations like Heights Philadelphia and Women of Color and Pharma that helped her break generational curses she saw in her own family. Now, she’s affording the same opportunities to people from her communities through mentorship, angel investing, and her nonprofit.
What mindset and key decisions helped you overcome?
It was more a mindset of what I didn’t want to be like in terms of what I saw and [growing up], as opposed to influences that I could identify like, yeah, this, that’s where I want to be. So it’s more, I know I don’t want that. I don’t want to live in the projects. I don’t want to be on food stamps and welfare. I don’t want to get evicted. I got evicted from the projects. Like, who gets evicted from the projects? How embarrassing is that? So it was more […] I know I don’t want that. I don’t quite know what it is that I want, but I know I don’t want that.
As a first-generation wealth builder and generational curse breaker, how has your upbringing influenced your mission?
It’s difficult right now because I’m starting to realize and settle into what that means to be first generation. There is no blueprint, there is no safe space. Honestly, I’m very different from everybody in my family. There’s no one I can call and say, well, this is what I’m doing now. What do you think? Everything sounds foreign. And so, it’s very isolating. And when I think about how I grew up and the people I grew around, if you didn’t [get along and] fit in [sic], you were an outcast. I don’t want to fit into a situation that’s depressed, that’s limiting me, that’s keeping me stagnant. So, I’m just going to be the outcast.
Is it better to meet a mentor or just pay for one?
The ones you pay for are totally invested in you doing well and that relationship growing. Oftentimes those people value their time and it’s not that they want the income, it’s just they value their time and everything that they’ve worked for that they can just push onto you in 30 seconds, took them 30 years and hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to acquire. And as you go along on this journey, you start to value your own time. So I get it, I’ll pay for it. And so I think it’s the ones you pay for [sic] from my experience.
As an angel investor, what advice do you have for women entrepreneurs seeking funding?
When you start this entrepreneurial journey, and you start to see how the financials work and how the dynamics work […] how very little of a percentage funding goes to minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, you start to realize we won’t exist unless we support each other. So, what I would say to women-owned businesses is learn the areas and avenues that see you and will invest in you. And it might not be in the places that you think about.
Tell us about the nonprofit venture you started in honor of your father.
Although being a first-generation wealth builder, I always could lean on my dad. Although he didn’t quite understand what my journey was, he knew and was so proud. And sometimes all you need is a cheerleader, like somebody that’s in your corner, no matter the ups or the downs, how high the highs are or how low the lows are, they’re just there to celebrate you, to pick you up when you need picking up. And so, this nonprofit is in honor of what my dad instilled in me. But it’s my take on it to carry it forward and hopefully help it sustain, and [have] it be bigger than just my family and just us because I know if my dad could, he would have given away everything he had to everybody that he could. But I think there’s a better way and hopefully through my nonprofit, it’s a better way.
