Minority-owned businesses make up just over one percent of all businesses in the state of North Carolina.
A group of entrepreneurs and business experts in Asheville are looking to improve that statistic.
They’re launching a new business accelerator this weekend. It will support people of color in getting a foothold in the local economy.
The Entrepreneurial Accelerator at Lenoir Rhyne offers one-on-one coaching and assistance with marketing tools, like building a website.
An important facet of the three-day event is that all the sessions are led and guided by women and people of color.
“We have to be led by ourselves, we are not looking for a savior. We are looking to be the change we want to see," Aisha Adams, one of the organizers and founder of Equity Over Everything, said. She says 30 entrepreneurs are enrolled in the minority business accelerator. And they’re all receiving some form of financial assistance to cover the $150 tuition.
“When we have thirty different businesses who are all standing on their own two feet economically, it’s huge in terms of individual families. You save a family you save a community," Adams said. "You have 30 more problems solved.”
A big frustration for people of color launching a business is the limited -- sometimes discriminatory -- access to loans or startup funding to make it possible. Joseph Fox, with Fox Management and Consulting Enterprises, says it’s even more challenging in smaller cities like Asheville, when compared to places like Atlanta or Charlotte, where minority-owned businesses make up a larger share of the economy.
“They are there and they’re showing up and they’re at the table, and they’re demanding their rights," Fox said. "Where you have a population like Asheville, where the non-majority is so limited that the majority lending institutions have not thought about inclusion portion of it because they haven’t had to.”
Fox says discussions this weekend will look at what resources are available to minority entrepreneurs to help get them into their growth phase.
He adds, while people of color need to equip themselves, partial responsibility does lie with those with the financial means to help make Asheville’s economy more inclusive.
