Minority Entrepreneurship
Minority Entrepreneurship
Investments from the Commerce Department and Challenges in Minority Entrepreneurship
In December of 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce launched the Capital Readiness Program grant competition, which dedicated $93.5 million to help minority and other underserved entrepreneurs launch and get their businesses running. This marked the largest investment to support minority entrepreneurs from the Commerce Department.
In the public announcement, we hear from the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury:
“We know that entrepreneurs and small businesses in underserved communities have long lacked equal access to resources and capital to reach their full economic potential,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “Through the Capital Readiness Program, the Minority Business Development Agency—tasked with promoting growth and competitiveness of our nation’s minority-owned businesses—will help enable entrepreneurs and business owners to obtain the information they need to access funding through small business support programs. When entrepreneurs and small business owners in all communities have a chance to compete and thrive, it increases our country’s entire economic potential and growth.”
This made me wonder about some of the challenges minority entrepreneurs face with employee ownership. Some of the main ones:
A need for educational resources
Access to capital
Economic inequality
Lack of awareness
What Can We Do About This?
Continue creating workshops and seminars specifically tailored to help minorities looking to learn about employee ownership
Partner with universities or other higher education institutions to host employee ownership courses or collaborate to host workshops for the community
Raise awareness
Some resources dedicated to helping minorities and other underserved people start up their businesses and grow:
VBOC - Veteran Business Outreach Center (at UT Arlington!)
Find local assistance and training for small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs on the SBA’s Local Assistance page
The Texas Department of Transportation offers several disadvantaged and small business enterprise programs
Something cool I stumbled upon as I was doing some research: The 2020 ABS geographic feature categorizes firms by urban and rural locations and found that there were more minority-owned businesses in urban (1,010,744) than in rural areas (56,865).
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