Minority Business Partnership Executive Summary
The Minority Business Partnership is the result of a comprehensive study on the state of minority business in the tri-county region. This study was commissioned by the BCD Council of Governments and conducted by the Institute of Entrepreneurial Thinking. The Study determined that African American businesses fare worse than that of majority and even other ethnic minority businesses. In addition, African American firms have grown at a slightly lower rate than similar firms nationally, and lag greatly behind the growth rate of other minority groups in the B-C-D Region. In fact, the study showed there was significant disparity in economic inclusion of businesses owned by people of color, particularly African American owned businesses. In addition to these troubling trends, the BCD region has a very low demand for inclusion. While there are substantial local buyers, there has been little effort geared toward including minority businesses in major buying. Most of the inclusion efforts have come from the public sector with limited private sector involvement.
As a result of this study, the Minority Business Partnership was developed to reverse this state of affairs through a comprehensive strategy designed to accelerate the growth of sizable minority businesses located in the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Region. The strategy ultimately consists of making critical connections between major buying firms in the region and targeted minority firms. A major objective of the Partnership was to identify those public and private organizations with solid inclusion approaches and work with other organizations to duplicate these efforts. Ultimately, regional spend goals were planned.
The Partnership’s first task was to target and secure commitments from focus firms and buying organizations. It is anticipated that a minimum of 50 sizable firms and 25 buying organizations will be secured. This has been accomplished by creating credibility and working to establish long term relationships, improving minority firm readiness and capability, and increasing the awareness of economic value to the region. The Partnership built a strong support infrastructure, create connections, build regional inclusion capacity, enhance the supply of minority firms, and cultivate actionable relationships. Specifically, the Partnership targeted sizable firms with 250K in annual revenues, creating deals making transactions through relationship building, developing a resource bank of consulting services, creating an enhanced comprehensive database of minority owned firms, and promote access by developing and executing strategic connections with buyers firms.
The Partnership is guided by a Leadership Council composed of area leaders and minority CEOs. This Council developed regional best practices, addressed capacity solutions, resource availability, certification, and serve as the central clearinghouse of minority business growth and development. The Partnership is still in its early stages with a wide array of continued infrastructure activities underway. However, early successes are evident. Numerous contracts have resulted from the Partnership's efforts and more are anticipated through the collaboration and support of organizations committed to the Partnership's success. As a result of these successes, community organizations, participating firms and buying organizations have championed our efforts with other minority firms and within the regional community.