Empowerus Founder Jeffrey DeHaven: Championing Financial Security for Communities of Color
Jeffrey DeHaven, founder of Empowerus, LLC, has devoted nearly 12 years to supporting the Black community. Empowerus, a sales and marketing firm, collaborates with the United Family Association, a non-profit focused on enhancing the quality of life for its members. DeHaven’s motivation stems from a deeply moving encounter with Pastor Dr. Calvin McKinney.
DeHaven recounted a pivotal experience when he met Dr. McKinney at a funeral in Los Angeles. This unexpected meeting, filled with sorrow, profoundly impacted DeHaven.
“It was heartbreaking because there was this young gal who had lost both her parents in a car accident, and it took her 90 days to raise the funds to bury them. And the look on her face stuck in me like a claw. I could not get rid of the look on her face and still have it in my pocket today, and it was the look of humiliation at the greatest time of loss,” DeHaven shared.
This experience ignited DeHaven’s commitment. He spent the subsequent two years investigating the financial challenges families faced in arranging funerals, and the lack of resources available to support them.
DeHaven, who identifies as Native American and grew up facing poverty, draws parallels between the histories of Native American and Black communities. He noted that both have centuries of mistreatment and marginalization.
“The Native American people and the Black community have a lot in common. We go back, hundreds of years of mistreatment and being placed in a box, told where we can live, where we can eat, and what kind of people we can be. So, it wasn’t a big reach for me to be able to understand that there were other people going through the same thing as my demographic, and that we were all part of God’s plan, and that we were all one group,” DeHaven stated.
DeHaven dedicated six years to overcome obstacles, negotiating with various businesses to develop insurance products tailored for low-income communities. Three years of this time focused on building and perfecting an assistance program for burials and other crucial life claims.
Initially, large insurance companies viewed these underserved communities as economically unviable due to historic disparities. Guarantee Trust Life of Chicago provided essential support where others hesitated. Yet, a hurdle remained: the capacity limits of standard life insurance.
“I got turned down by everybody, and the good people at Guarantee Trust Life out of Chicago, they stepped up where nobody else was willing to step up. And then we had a bigger problem, and that was we needed the capacity. Life insurance companies can only [serve] 100,000 lives,” DeHaven explained. “Well, we could do 100,000 lives in an hour. So, we needed reinsurance. That took me another two years to put together. So, my reinsurance company is called Hannover Re. They’re the third largest reinsurance company in the world.”
DeHaven consolidated these services into a single platform to provide accessible benefits for underserved communities. Through various benefit packages, beneficiaries can access their life insurance, dental insurance, telemedicine, and roadside assistance.
DeHaven believes Empowerus will permanently alter the financial and security trajectory for communities of color by providing affordable solutions.
“If I’m able to bury 10,000 of our family’s loved ones in dignity and without financial stress to their family, that is $800 million I just put back on their table for housing, food, electricity, education, transportation — that’s back in their pocket. It’s a very important element of our program,” DeHaven explained.
Empowerus’ board includes prominent figures such as Bishop Harry L. Seawright; Terrence L. Melvin, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU); Sabre Pictou Lee; and Eloy Ortiz-Oakley, Director of Indigenous Relations.
“As a Bishop in the AME Church, I proudly support Empowerus. Together, we’ve worked tirelessly to build this incredible blessing for communities of color, standing united in our commitment to create lasting opportunities and positive change,” Seawright stated in an online review on the Empowerus website.
