The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan works to “build the resources, relationships, and expertise required to expand equitable access to opportunities”. The mission is “to make southeast Michigan a desirable place to live, work and play for all residents, today and tomorrow.”

Working to create an inclusive and equitable economy, especially for those in marginalized groups and communities, is core to all our work. We work to dismantle systemic racism and build a more equitable and just economy.

In this context, the New Economy Initiative (NEI), is one of the largest economic development initiatives of its kind. We know that great ideas are distributed equally—there is no discrimination of imagination—but there is not equal access to the resources needed to bring great ideas to life.

NEI is an ecosystem of support so anyone with an entrepreneurial dream can pursue it, despite not having access to family or generational wealth. Success shouldn’t be dependent on a “rich Uncle.” We provide an economic development tool for building prosperous, robust communities.

I love this question! Everything about this work excites me, and it’s all so tangible. Under normal circumstances, most minority or marginalized entrepreneurs would find it hard to launch an idea. Once they connect with our ecosystem, they access mentorship, business development support, and capital, all at the grassroots level.

A real-life example is a refugee couple from East Africa. They lived in refugee housing, Freedom House, where the wife started cooking for other refugees. This grew and soon she was selling food to staff and from the trunk of her car. Her next step was selling at the Eastern Market. NEI connected this couple with other resources and got them mentoring and 1:1 business coaching. Soon there was a brick-and-mortar restaurant. They’ve now opened a second location, a food truck, and are developing a wine. It has exploded! This couple came to the US with nothing. They had a dream and accessing these resources helped them make it real.

Another example is a woman who makes mushroom burgers. She started her business in NY, but couldn’t get the support needed there, so she moved her entire family to Detroit. Here, she was able to access a robust small business ecosystem, find a place to make the patties, get help navigating the regulatory requirements, and is now selling her products via a large mid-western grocery food chain. She’s struggling to keep up with demand!

These successes are dependent on an infrastructure that can meet shifting needs. We use data from small business surveys run every other year along with data from grantees. The biggest challenge is being able to anticipate needs and find organizations that can fill those and offer holistic support.

The ecosystem is intrinsically collaborative. The partners meet regularly and frequently to learn from each other and explore emerging issues, all of which build the relationships that allow for referrals that benefit the experience of the entrepreneurs.

We also convene funders around access to capital. We have a capital “on-ramp” to make sure that any business that fits the profile gets access to capital. We have a shared application and have worked with underwriters to make it as simple as possible. We give micro-loans paired with small business coaching to walk people through, get their financials in order, and get a business development plan in place.

The overarching challenge is the deeply entrenched systemic inequities and lack of access to resources for marginalized communities.

There are, of course, big issues around capital access. When governments (local, state, and federal) build programs, they define small businesses as 250 employees and less; we define them as 10 employees and less. They imagine a “mini-corporate” model. We think of economic gardening, beginning with seeds and 1-2 employees, and getting the resources to them.

Additionally, for some of the government incentives, you need a Chief Financial Officer, or to hire out for that, to navigate the complexities. They’re not built for accessibility.

We’ve also created a statewide policy coalition to address barriers; we’re really struggling with it. Everyone says they support small businesses—they employ just over 50% of the workforce—but we just don’t see them put the proportionate effort in.

It allows us to look at best practices and collaborate across the States. It amplifies our collective voice. We get to see what other organizations are doing and learn from them—it’s so much easier to replicate ideas than to reinvent the wheel.

How do we better align our funding strategies to have a cohesive impact across sectors? How do we think about issues more collectively? How can we align with and leverage similar work?

As we face instability at the federal level, I worry that separate and disparate messages become static. So how do we build a cohesive message and move in the same direction?