The Washington, DC-based venture capital fund 1863 Ventures is expanding its 3Rs grant program to Louisville.
The 3Rs (Recovery, Rebuild, Resilience) is a business development program that is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Capital One. It provides eligible minority entrepreneurs with $5,000 in capital and access to a curated, online business curriculum.
The funders have made more than $850,000 in grants available over three years to minority entrepreneurs in 15 metropolitan areas.
Founders who are awarded a $5,000 grant are required to complete online learning that contains valuable business guidance and strategies to grow their business. They must also attend at least three, free coaching sessions over the course of three months.
Melisa Bradley, the founder and managing partner of 1863 Ventures, said minority companies have been among the most devastated by the economic uncertainty of the last two years because many of them were undercapitalized even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Bradley said the 3Rs grant program is designed to support these minority entrepreneurs at a local level.
“We have a successful history with working with what we call New Majority entrepreneurs,” Bradley added. “Even before George Floyd, we created a Covid Relief Center. It was because we were able to recognize what some of the core challenges were between customer acquisition and marketing, managing your finances and securing financing and we're laser focused on providing that support.”
According to US Census data, African Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population, but they account for less than 2% of business owners.
1863 Ventures was founded in 2016 to help African Americans in DC start businesses and create jobs for their community. Now, its mission is to create $100 billion in new wealth by 2030 through both its non-profit programming and venture fund.
The 3Rs program originally launched in DC in November 2020 with funding from Capital One. Bradley said a 92 percent success rate of the companies in the early phases of the program inspired the Rockefeller Foundation to help expand the program to more cities.
Bradley said the 3Rs program is successful because of its individualized approach to the training.
“I think you'll find a lot of folks who have training in a box and we are very cognizant of segmentation between CPG (consumer packaged goods) and tech, we're cognizant of segmentation by size and that has served as well,” Bradley explained.
To be eligible for the 3Rs program, a founder must have an incorporated business (LLC, C-Corp or S-Corp) and have a residential or commercial address in one of the eligible cities. In addition to Louisville, other cities in the program include Boston, El Paso, Houston, Miami, Oakland, and Jackson, Mississippi.
Bradley said the program is designed to help small businesses to be proactive in creating personas and content that is relevant to their customers. On the financing side, she said the curriculum involves reengineering a company's financial modeling practices to add stability to their business.
1863 Ventures works with entrepreneurs of all races, Bradley said, but the 3Rs grant program is limited to minority business owners because they often have to deal with historical problems that predate the Covid-19 pandemic.
One impact of Covid is that more people are turning to entrepreneurship. Bradley said there were 4.3 million new business applications filed in 2020, that's one million more that was in 2019.
“Because most of our businesses are Black and Brown, access to capital and supply chain challenges are not new," she explained. "Right now, as we look at the statistics, we’re probably about 30% people in startup mode and the rest are people that have already been in business. We automatically knew we were going to get those who are already in business, particularly as we begin to see the grant programs wane from all these big corporations.”
Bradley said there are some advantages to being an entrepreneur in a city like Louisville with its low cost of living, its robust academic community, and a business environment that is enhanced by the presence of logistic companies like United Parcel Service Inc..
“I would say, much like other places, that you have a greater focus in terms of what is possible around business supports,” she added. “I know that statewide there has definitely been this movement towards tech companies, and I know Louisville has done the same thing of trying to increase some of their resources for small business.”
To apply for the 3Rs grant program visit the 1863 Ventures website.
