Many Americans learn about whiskey through Jack Daniel, but Jack learned to distill from an enslaved man named Nearest Green, a.k.a Uncle Nearest. After reading an article about Green, bestselling writer Fawn Weaver learned that his old distillery was up for sale. So she bought it, resurrected it, and hired Nearest's great-great granddaughter to be master distiller. In only three years, Uncle Nearest's blends have won more than 150 awards and the company's revenue has grown over 3,000 percent. Weaver has created one of the few companies in the field with an all-female executive team and an all-minority board as it celebrates the legacy of a heretofore unknown, formative American craftsman and reclaims the lost heritage of an iconic American brand. Weaver has given back by donating 300,000 face masks to first responders and sponsoring initiatives to encourage people of color to enter the spirits industry and help small Black-owned brands succeed.

A media agency for nonprofits, Media Cause inherently impacts local communities. It has educated 870 million people on issues dear to its clients and recruited 334,000 new members to their online communities, according to the company's first annual report, published in 2020. Media Cause's work on Tap Cancer Out helped raise more than $870,000 for childhood cancer research, while the firm helped more than 4,500 low-income families enroll their children in free charter schools in New York and Boston.

Culture Shift Labs revolves around financial and economic inclusion for the Black community and achieving visible results in racial equality. Its annual summit, Culture Shifting Weekends, is dedicated to providing opportunities to Black executives, venture investors, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit leaders. For the past 17 years, the summit has helped facilitate more than $350 million in deals and collaborations for attendees. Culture Shift's goal is to get $1 billion into the hands of this community by 2025.

The convergence of Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement presented a unique opportunity to Mentor Spaces, a virtual mentorship platform for Black and Latinx early-career professionals. Mentor Space’s mission is to make all workplaces diverse, equitable, and inclusive while advancing and maximizing the careers of underrepresented talent by providing a platform for professionals to have their own voice. The app already has more than 10,000 active students, helping them recognize their strengths, values, and interests to confidently reach their goals.

Waste from electronics, or e-waste, is the world’s fastest-growing solid waste stream. To help ensure that the products we need are built sustainably, top brands need to get smarter and more efficient throughout the entire design-build process. This year, Instrumental introduced an A.I.-powered discovery system along with external data streams to enable engineers to find flaws as they occur and amend them before they create vast quantities of waste.