Minority Entrepreneurship

Minority entrepreneurs represent a largely untapped resource in the United States economy. Although the number of minority-owned businesses has grown significantly over the past twenty years, these firms continue to lag behind in economic indicators. The Kauffman Foundation is working to better understand these gaps, studying the layers of social and cultural perceptions and strengthening the infrastructures and networks that will help minority entrepreneurs be successful.

 

Initiatives

  • The series of papers contained in this volume are the result of a conference funded by the Kauffman Foundation and are a key piece of the effort to encourage young scholars.

  • UEP Gulf Coast, Inc. was created by the Kauffman Foundation's Urban Entrepreneur Partnership (UEP) to spearhead business development following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

  • This initiative provides for the development of one-stop economic empowerment centers to provide business training, counseling, financing, and procurement opportunities to minority and urban business owners.

Highlights

  • Bill Strickland's visionary leadership, willpower, and underlying belief in the goodness of people has turned a dilapidated community center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania into one of the most successful nonprofit arts and technology organizations in America.  Blending jazz, ceramics, orchids, cooking and whatever else will bring light into the inner city, he gives people the tools they need, treats them with respect, and watches as they accomplish miraculous things.

  • Within weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, the Kauffman Foundation's minority entrepreneurship team began site visits to the Gulf Coast region to assess the situation and to form a strategy of how our organization could most effectively offer support. See how restoration of the gulf coast region begins with businesses.

     

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