By Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s own admission, the city has failed a lot of small business owners. This is especially true of the city’s Black-owned businesses.
To help correct this, Strickland recently announced the launch of a new “800 Initiative” to help 800 Black-owned businesses increase revenue.
The mayor proposes $500,000 in city funding each of the next three fiscal years to fund the city’s 800 minority-owned businesses that have paid employees. This is in addition to $1 million pledged by FedEx Corp. over the next four years to the “800 initiative,” announced May 29.
“One percent of total business receipts in our city go to African-American-owned business when 63 percent of our city is African American. That’s not sustainable,” Strickland said during an announcement.
Memphis’ director of Minority and Women-Owned Business Development, Joann Massey, asked people to “believe in the opportunities of Memphis.”
“This office will reach out to 800 companies but we hope they will reach out to us because we want to grow these businesses,” Strickland said. “We need the growth in Downtown, Midtown and East Memphis to be spread through the whole city, so all parts of our city see this economic boom and this is one step toward that.”
The mayor wants to help the 800 businesses to see a $50 million increase in annual revenue by 2023. He proposes funding Black-owned businesses beginning with the next fiscal year on July 1.
“The mayor has proposed spending $500,000 a year from his budget on the program. FedEx has agreed to spend $1 million over four years. The funds will pay for loans and grants, while Christian Brothers University will support continuing education,” WREG News Channel 3 Memphis reported.
“We’re going to be involved in a lot of training aspects of the program so entrepreneurs who have the idea but don’t have the business acumen can do certificate programming and get other degrees,” Christian Brothers University President John Smarrelli explained. “Where if an owner does not have the training and business skills, we will provide that sort of training. If the owner needs another advanced degree — MBA-type opportunities — CBU will provide that. We’ll be sort of the home of where the program will be. We don’t want it to be part of the politics of government. We really want to house the program and improvise the training that’s required.”
This should offer a big lift to struggling business owners.
“We must do everything we can to empower small businesses,” Strickland said during the announcement at the Universal Life Insurance building. “And for us that has a direct impact on generational poverty. To achieve true equity in our economy, we know we must do everything that we can to empower minority-owned businesses.”
The Memphis city government has set a goal of improving the percentage of city contracts awarded to minority businesses, Memphis Daily News reported.
Strickland said the 800 initiative is about improving the 1-percent share of business-to-business receipts that go annually to Black-owned businesses in a city that is 63 percent African-American by the latest U.S. Census figures, Memphis Daily News reported.
