Today, Truist Foundation announced a $1 million grant to Emory University’s Goizueta Business School’s Start:ME Accelerator program, the largest gift in the program’s 10-year history. Start:ME is a free, 14-week accelerator training program aimed at supporting small businesses in underserved communities in Atlanta. Delivered by Goizueta’s Business & Society Institute, alongside a coalition of neighborhood partners, the program provides micro-entrepreneurs the tools and connections necessary to build and grow successful businesses.
“Collectively, microbusinesses directly feed into the economic and social vitality of their communities,” said Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School. “When these businesses thrive—generating income, creating jobs, occupying spaces and providing role models—surrounding neighborhoods do as well.”
From mom-and-pop shops to in-home ventures, microbusinesses are individually quite small but collectively create a big impact. According to The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), microbusinesses account for 92 percent of all US businesses and create 41.3 million jobs.
Truist Foundation is a longtime partner of the Start:ME program, serving as the program’s inaugural external seed funder, issuing the first grant to the program’s Clarkston efforts in 2013. This new investment was made as part of Emory University’s 2O36 campaign supporting the university’s mission to serve humanity through knowledge.
“We are proud to partner with Goizueta Business School and support such a transformational program in the Atlanta community,” says Lynette Bell, president of Truist Foundation. “Truist Foundation believes all people and communities should have an equal opportunity to thrive. By strengthening the small business ecosystem in underserved neighborhoods, we can begin to level the playing field and ignite generational wealth for years to come.”
Over the past 10…
Read the full article here