Chicago understands the need for entrepreneurship

For the last two years that I’ve been president of the Chicago Urban League, I’ve been waiting for someone to step up and ask me why we devote so much of our time and resources to entrepreneurship.

I’m proud of you, Chicago, for getting it. You understand that we must create sustainable businesses and jobs opportunities in our communities. Entrepreneurship and employment go hand in hand. Thank you for understanding and supporting our efforts to build and strengthen Black-owned businesses.

Business ownership isn’t a cake walk, and people hold a lot of misperceptions about what it’s like to be your own boss. For instance, business owners will tell you that there is a perception that if you own a business, you’ve got it made, you must be rich. I’m talking a big “baller,” wining and dining friends and colleagues, VIP everything and hanging out with Jay-Z. For most business owners, it’s nothing like that. But despite the hardships, most entrepreneurs will tell you it is, nonetheless, gratifying and they are never going back to a 9-to-5.

The hard part is where we come in at the Chicago Urban League with our nextONE business acceleration program. Every year we select 15 high-growth entrepreneurs to participate in our intensive nine-month coaching and educational curriculum designed to help entrepreneurs take their businesses to the next level. We’re about to embark on our third year and are looking for the next 15 entrepreneurs to make up our 2009 nextONE class. The deadline to submit applications to participate in the nextONE program has been extended to June 15. You can upload the application online at www.thechicagourbanleague.org.

So, who’s a candidate for nextONE? Well, the program was designed to grow businesses with high-growth potential, not startups. The Chicago Urban League has a separate slate of programs to help newer businesses get off the ground. However, past participants in the nextONE program have owned businesses with annual revenues of $1 million or more. But then, these business owners got stuck. They hit a wall or a ceiling, or they lost financing. For some, the climate of their respective industries took a downward turn, and they wondered whether they would be able to weather the storm.

I’m proud to say that because of nextONE, the capacity of Chicago’s African-American business community has grown. Our nextONE graduates have been able to land lucrative contracts, acquire financing to fund expansion and grow their staffs. In fact, we probably even helped save a few businesses, or at least equipped business owners with the knowledge to better forecast potential obstacles and ride out the bumps. We work with businesses that have the ability to create jobs in the community as well as wealth. When businesses thrive, so do the communities they serve. New supplier relationships are cultivated, dollars are spent and returned to our communities, and people are able to hold on to their jobs and even advance, in some cases. Business owners play a high-stakes game in order to bring community members opportunities, goods and services.

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