A New York City woman is making sure that other minority-owned businesses are getting the chance to succeed.
Francilia Wilkins started R.F. Wilkins Consultants 13 years ago at 23 years old. Her goal was to create a platform that would create economic access, opportunity and security for those in disadvantaged communities and populations.
Wilkins says that the business has three main arms: raising money, project management, and technology system integration.
“We raise $900 million for everything from after-school programs, homeless shelters, affordable housing, transitional housing, you name it, when it comes to development and social projects in and around New York State,” said Wilkins.
Where the company is now is a far stretch from how it started. Wilkins says that after graduating from St. John’s University with an MBA in Marketing Management, she found herself in a similar position that a lot of graduates in 2011 found themselves in.
“You could not pay somebody for a job, you could not pay somebody to hire you. It was so difficult for anybody who graduated around that time. I remember I had done everything right; I had went to school, I got the high honors,” said Wilkins. “I found a [job listing for a] business development consultant and so I started telling everyone around me, well, I’m an independent business developer, and I literally just started saying that out loud.”
It was saying it out loud that landed Wilkins her first client: a friend’s father who was looking to set up a nonprofit for ex-offenders.
“A friend whose father was a physically disabled ex-offender, who was just getting out of prison for white-collar crime, and another son of his who had served 25 years, they called me and he said, well, my dad wants to create a nonprofit organization to help physically disabled ex-offenders re-enter into society, he said, can you help me with that?” said Wilkins. “So I said absolutely. And that’s when I took on my first client ever. They introduced us to our second client who’s still a client today.”
R. F. Wilkins Consultants has since grown into one of the largest Black women-owned business in the country, reaching the top 2% of women-owned firms and 0.1% of Black women-owned firms in the country. The company has taken on clients such as Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Google, JFK Airport and so many more.
Although R.F Wilkins does have some high-profile clients, Wilkins says that investing in small, diverse businesses is something that she always wants to be a main focus of the company.
“We have been advocates and we’ve helped small businesses to get access to contracts and other opportunities because I always say a company cannot scale unless they have access to contracts or capital money. That’s the first way, then it becomes a trickle-down effect,” said Wilkins. “When you support minority and diverse businesses, you support a diverse community.”
Given her own background living in Liberia before moving to the USA with her parents and having lived through the Liberian Civil War, Wilkins realized later on how important it was to give back to the communities who need it most.
“Understanding what war does to a community, understanding what it means to the people around you are dead and dying, understanding what it means to have everything and have nothing — I feel like even though I was such a young person, it’s always been a driving force to create a way for other people and other communities to have what they need,” said Wilkins. “That is what we do in RFW, that is the ‘why’ behind what I do.”
Wilkins and her team are continuing to work to make sure that their clients have the best possible outcome for their upcoming projects.
“We’re so excited to continue doing the work that we’re doing. So whether it’s compliance or engaging communities or technology work or anything under our portfolio, project management work, we’re just excited to keep doing what we’re doing,” said Wilkins. “I hope to one day look back and really be able to continue to speak to the impact that we’ve made on the world. That’s why we’re here.”
For more information, visit rfwconsultants.com.
