The Louisville Urban League held a press conference on Monday morning at the Norton Healthcare Sports and Learning Center to announce the launch of a new program designed to increase minority business ownership in Louisville.
The Urban League is partnering with A Path Forward, a collective of Black leaders and Black-led organizations, to create the Center for Entrepreneurship. The center will offer financial coaching, credit repair counseling and other services to minority entrepreneurs looking to start a new business or expand an existing one.
Sadiqa Reynolds, Urban League president and CEO, said her organization decided to develop the center because it recognized a gap in the ecosystem serving Black businesses. She said there are several minority business incubators in Louisville, but no organization was curating the services to meet the specific needs of area entrepreneurs.
The center will provide services to the client itself or refer them out to one of its partners.
"I think one of the things that grew out of all of the trauma of the last couple of years was people really recognizing how few of our businesses in Louisville are black owned," Reynolds said. "About 2.4% of businesses in our community are black owned, while Black people account for 24% of the population. And in the pandemic, we saw the challenges Black people were having getting loans."
Reynolds did not disclose any specifics on how much the Urban League is investing in the new center. Louisville Metro has allocated $2.7 million to A Path Forward in the 2022 budget for small business assistance.
"We have million dollars to spend and we expect to deploy those dollars in this community to support the growth of black businesses," Reynolds said. "Louisville Metro is investing a couple of million in it as well because I think the mayor and the Metro Council recognize the need to expand access to capital."
Cynthia Brown, managing director of the Urban League's Black Business Initiative, will serve as the director of the new center.
The Urban League had a soft launch of the center's services in January and enrolled 146 clients with no advertising, Reynolds said.
The list of other organizations working with center include: AMPED's Russell Technology Business Incubator, Buy Black Lou, LHOME, the Louisville Independent Business Alliance, Russell: A Place of Promise, MELANnaire Marketplace and the Louisville Small Business Development Center.
"We really created this pipeline and we've sort of fit people in wherever it is appropriate for their business, given the size and given the need," Reynolds explained. "We're going to have an information session coming up so that we can bring others into the project. We know there are other people in our city that are sort of dabbling in this work and we want to make sure they have an opportunity to partner with us as well."
The informational meeting for potential service providers will be held at 9 a.m. on June 14 at the Norton Healthcare Sports and Learning Center.
Any current or potential minority business owners interested in receiving services from the Center for Entrepreneurship can sign up here or call 502-208-6590 to schedule a one-on-one coaching session.
