The Jackson Ward Collective, a network of Richmond-area Black business owners, is launching a new business accelerator program aimed at boosting early-stage entrepreneurs, beginning in September.
The Community Business Academy is a 12-week program licensed to the collective from Jersey City, New Jersey-based Rising Tide Capital. The collective’s co-founders, Melody Short, Rasheeda Creighton and Kelli Lemon, are bringing the accelerator academy to Richmond to fill a gap in existing small business development resources in the region.
“A lot of the [existing] programming is about identifying your market and then moving fairly quickly to finding funding. What was missing was how to actually run a business,” Creighton said. “You know, what is a P&L, how do you think about financials, how do you think about credit, how does your personal credit impact your business credit, how do you build operations, how do you think about staffing — all of those nuanced pieces that are the foundation for running a business were not out there.”
Academy participants will attend a three-hour class each Wednesday night, with assigned homework, all the while building an effective business plan and identifying the next steps.
The course will be taught by experienced entrepreneurs who have attended a training program, according to the website of the academy licensor, Rising Tide.
The program is valued at $3,000. The licensing fee, however, is being sponsored by Altria, Capital One and Dominion Energy, Short said. Participants will pay a sliding scale fee based on income, ranging from $100 to $250 per participant.
Applicants should have a “solid” business idea that they can work on during the sessions. “We want program participants to have some skin in the game,” Short said.
Metaphorically speaking, the Jackson Ward Collective offers a history lesson as well as business coaching. Just after the Civil War, the Jackson Ward was a voting district gerrymandered to concentrate the city’s Black residents into a single city council seat. In the early 20th century, it blossomed into one of the nation’s first “Black Wall Streets,” teeming with Black-owned businesses, including shops, salons, hotels, entertainment venues and financial institutions. (Redevelopment by the public housing authority largely destroyed Jackson Ward’s Black Wall Street.)
“That’s the framework for the work that we are doing. We’re pulling from the past while also making sure that those stories, those experiences, are inspiring us now in the present day,” Short said.
Short and Creighton said they believe in the power of entrepreneurship to lift future generations.
“We want to make sure the Black community knows that you have the ability to pull on your skill set to provide for your family. Oftentimes, when we do have jobs, they’re not livable wage jobs. And you still have to survive,” Short said. “But who wants to just survive? You want to be able to live and thrive in this world, and do the things that you want, beyond just making ends meet. We believe that entrepreneurship is a path to that.”
The collective expects to host another 12-week academy session in March.
