Advancing Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Business Growth in Urban Manufacturing: Lessons from Portland and Cincinnati

UMA’s Equity Community of Practice (co-chaired by Tanu Kumar of Pratt Center for Community Development and Chris Schildt of PolicyLink) hosted a webinar on inclusive entrepreneurship, moderated by Tracy Gray of the 22 Capital Group (and one of UMA’s Equity Advisory Board Members). We heard from Katherine Krajnak about Portland Development Corporation’s Inclusive Startup Fund and Darrin Redus about the Cincinnati Chamber’s Minority Business Accelerator. They described two different models for elevating minority manufacturing firms.

Takeaways

Reorienting your organization’s mission around equity means looking inward. When public agencies and community-based organizations are running forward-facing economic development programs aimed at inclusion, they also need to look within first. This means getting staff to think about culture internally, and collaborate on strategies to address biases or barriers within the agency. For instance, Portland Development Corporation looked at how they can work to address institutional racism in ways small and large within their agency.

Be sensitive to questions of scale when supporting maker entrepreneurship. Not all partnership opportunities are good opportunities, particularly for small companies working to scale up. The Cincinnati Chamber worked to develop partnerships with large corporate “goal setters” (like Proctor and Gamble and Kroger), and then connected them to a pipeline of minority businesses that had scaled to the point that they could successfully take on contracting opportunities.  By contrast, Portland Development Corporation focused on how they could support minority entrepreneurs at their infancy (e.g. early financing for those businesses where friends and family might traditionally plug in – not everybody has those networks!)

Look outside of traditional channels when developing a diverse pipeline of entrepreneurs. There are a lot of professional networking groups that can support the identification and vetting of minority businesses, but it is also important to look at unofficial networks in communities (faith-based groups, for instance) to find local producers. PDC is now actively working to identify local partner organizations with deep networks and experience working with minority and women entrepreneurs to boost outreach and help implement programs.

Building the case for minority entrepreneurship takes mentorship and data.  It is imperative that we create more opportunities for business-owners of color leading panels, acting as mentors and shaping conceptions of the maker movement.  Katherine noted the importance of risk taking to support minority entrepreneurs, because beyond any one particular company’s success, we need a culture of visible minority entrepreneurs in the manufacturing space. Darrin highlighted the critical role of data in documenting impact on target populations and making the case to investors as the Chamber works towards their five-year job creation and revenue goals.