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April 21, 2005

Yawu Miller

Since the year 2000 Census revealed that Boston’s population is now more than 50 percent people of color, civic leaders have increasingly cited the city’s diversity as one of its assets.

Yet the multi-hued throngs seen on Boston streets fade to white inside the boardrooms and corner offices of the city’s corporations where people of color are few and far between.

An initiative unveiled last week is aiming to change that by helping minority-owned businesses to grow their businesses and claim a larger share of the business in the city. Called the Initiative for a New Economy, the program was funded with a $1.3 million grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and $100,000 grants from the city of Boston, The Boston Foundation and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay.

The initiative will work on supplier development — the process of building the capacity of small businesses to bid on large contracts. The goal of the program, according to Mayor Thomas Menino, is to make the city more inclusive.

“If we really want Boston to be inclusive, it must be in board rooms, in government and in business,” Menino said. “Boston is a minority-majority city. For this city to work, everyone must be part of it.”

The approach outlined by the Initiative for a New Economy is new for the city’s business community. In the post civil rights era, black business assistance often meant goals and quotas that encouraged companies and agencies to do a certain volume of business with minorities.

While many minority businesses benefitted from those programs, businesses pulled back from such efforts in the ’90s when the business climate became more competitive. At the same time, governmental programs came under attack from Republicans and conservative activists. Many government set-aside programs that channeled contracts to minority suppliers were cut in response to legal challenges.

The approach favored by the INE is to build the capacity of minority-owned businesses so they can compete with larger white-owned firms.

Minority business owners will not only be coached on the bidding process, but also receive help strengthening their balance sheets by helping them obtain financing.

The program will also work with corporations to help them institute minority business programs.

Because the city’s people of color are gaining an increasing share of the population, it is crucial for those communities to have a share of the business generated here, said Gail Snowden, a vice president at The Boston Foundation.

“The growth of the city’s business sector will come in a large part from minorities,” she said.

Black business owners at the meeting expressed support for the initiative.

“As advocates for black business, we are happy to support this initiative with its focus on the critical issue of capacity building for businesses of color that can meet the needs of today’s marketplace,” said Shelley Webster, chairwoman of the Burroughs Group, a consortium of black Boston area businesses.

The idea for INE came out of the Business Collaborative, a nonprofit business group of major corporations and minority entrepreneurs, which in 1993 commissioned a study of the business environment for minority enterprises in Massachusetts.

The study’s chief recommendation was for local corporations to embrace supplier development. INE was formed to implement that strategy.

According to the study there are approximately 60,000 businesses of color in Massachusetts. Only 6,000 have the capacity to bid on supply and service contracts with local corporations. The study found that minority businesses have grown by approximately 9.3 percent per year, more than five times the rate of all corporations in Massachusetts.

But the minority business owners polled in the study said the climate for doing business in Massachusetts has not significantly improved in the past decade. Corporate leaders present at last week’s announcement said they were committed to changing the business climate for minority businesses.

Among those present were Paul Guzzi, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Paul Grogan, president and CEO of the Boston Foundation and Bill Van Faasen, executive chairman and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield.

“If you look at who’s at the table, there are some very strong players,” noted Karl Nurse of Nurse Communications. “Based on their track records you can imagine what they can accomplish.”

 

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