by Ray Hayes
Since 2015, the Entrepreneurs of Color Fund has granted funds to 43 minority owned businesses throughout the city of Detroit helping to retain or produce more than 600 jobs. With the overall success of the fund since its launch, potential donors have taken notice. As a result, the fund is expected, “…to swell to more than $18 million as new donors add to the investments already made by Chase, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the nonprofit Detroit Development Fund,”
According to the Detroit Free Press. Ralph C. Wilson Foundation, Fifth Third Bank and the Kresge Foundation are among the new investors. According to the US Census, Detroit has more than 50,000 small businesses with most having zero employees and lacking necessary capital or technical needs to grow successfully.
Ray Waters, president of the Detroit Development Fund, spoke about how the fund has helped the city . “Our Entrepreneurs of Color Fund has created great economic opportunity for minority-owned small businesses in Detroit this year. This expansion of the fund will create countless new jobs and bring new goods and services to even more neighborhoods in the coming years.”
With the funds success in Detroit, Chase is planning on expanding the idea to San Francisco and South Bronx.
