Black history is a time to reflect and bring equity and empowerment to our community. The Minority Business Accelerator (Accelerator) supports and celebrates Black businesses in honor of Black History. The purpose of the Accelerator is to "Increase economic empowerment and inclusion in underrepresented communities by accelerating business growth and expanding access to opportunity and investment in scalable minority-owned businesses." In reflection, we at the Minority Business Accelerator celebrate and deliver Black empowerment every day to support, grow, invest, and develop MBE firms to sustainability. Moreover, we partner to advance relationships to assist our firms with companies within our ecosystem that elect to contract and invest with the Accelerator.
The Accelerator now in the ninetieth year as one of the region’s primary economic inclusion minority business initiatives promoting diversity and innovation in business to impact and support MBE development across industries. To date, the Accelerator has supported over seventy larger scale minority owned businesses with a minimum $1 million annual revenue average size approaching $30 million while creating over 3500 jobs. The outcome is an increase in knowledge and growth for our organizations. Lastly, the Accelerator assists MBE and Majority CEOs in the leadership and benefit of inclusion.
A key strategy is our mission to collaborate with our firms to identify solutions and inspire to deliver opportunities. Historically, the Accelerator’s connection to Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce has led to supportive solutions adding value for our firms. Darrin Redus envisioned the path of the Accelerator to drive more effective outcomes while collaborating with the Chamber to deliver the resources of the Chamber to its members. The Chamber and Accelerator collaboration allows the ability to support more MBE's and offer more profound services to our firms. The tragedy of COVID led organizations, including the Accelerator, to rethink culture, operations, and effective outreach for every Accelerator firm. The more significant opportunity was to look toward the future to devise capital solutions to assist our Accelerator firms. Redus stated, “MBE firms need access specifically to equity capital which historically has been difficult to obtain within traditional financing for growth.”
In 2022 the Accelerator began a more centric focus on our MBE firms and development by hiring additional Senior Advisors to support our firms. The Accelerator supports our firms in accessing funds and investment to deliver Black capital for economic power within our communities. Further, we have the tools to intake new firms within the Accelerator to position new companies for growth, mergers, and acquisition. The intake of new firms is best achieved by collaborative partnerships. One such partnership is with Black Achievers.
We are proud to announce that the Accelerator and Black Achievers under the direction of Michael Moore are in partnership with Achiever members. Redus and Moore shared, "Together, as partners we are a dynamic and collaborative for Black Achievers to accelerate entrepreneurism within this powerful organization. The collaboration delivers Black empowerment through business ownership, leadership, investment, and partnerships."
The Accelerator and Black Achievers partnership support members who seek to accelerate or pivot to entrepreneurship through partnership, purchase, investment in an MBE or a majority company. The ability to bridge the Accelerator and Black Achievers can lead to economic advancement and innovation to strengthen current and future members in business acceleration. "We are excited by our partnership to create innovation, jobs, and wealth in our communities," Redus shared.
To learn more about the Minority Business Accelerator and those seeking to collaborate with Black Achievers and the Accelerator for entrepreneurship, contact Michael Moore, Executive Director of Black Achievers.