“1MBB Next Gen” Action Pledge leverages HBCUs as a pipeline to successfully identify and nurture 5,000 aspiring Black entrepreneurs
The groundbreaking 1MBB initiative aims to strengthen ownership in America’s small businesses by increasing access to resources such as capital, technology and mentoring.
ATLANTA, September 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Operation HOPE announced a “commitment to action” today at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). This commitment will extend its revolutionary action 1 Million Black Business Initiative (1MBB) with specific goals for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The news was shared at the CGI 2023 meeting in New York City.
A Commitment to Action – CGI’s defining characteristic – is a plan to address an important global challenge. As an extension of 1MBB, HOPE has created the “1MBB Next Gen” program, which will leverage the reach and influence of HBCUs to establish a pipeline that develops, trains and empowers the next generation of small business owners. This includes creating an additional 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs over the next five years. To date, 1MBB has engaged over 360,000 Black businesses.
“This 1MBB process has revealed that there is an incredible entrepreneurial and ambitious energy driven by young Black men and women across America, fueled largely by the HBCU community,” said John Hope Bryant, Operation HOPE Founder, Chairman and CEO. “Grateful that the next Steve Jobs could be within the walls of these institutions, we wanted to rewrite the script by finding a way to nurture and encourage young innovators. »
Launched in 2020, following the reckoning for social justice in the United States following the murder of George Floyd, 1MBB’s mission is to overcome barriers to success for many Black small business owners by accelerating access to critical resources such as capital, technology, mentoring and networking. (Watch 1MBB success stories here)
To help achieve the ultimate goal of 1MBB, Operation HOPE is also currently working with various communities and partners, including founding partner Shopify, which has committed to providing in-kind and financial support totaling $130 million. 1MBB combines the high-level training and coaching of Operation HOPE with the high-tech expertise of Shopify’s business-in-a-box digital platform to help level the playing field.
In addition to HBCUs and Shopify, the program created the “Coalition of the Willing” – a national alliance comprised of faith groups, nonprofits, and diverse municipalities – to amplify and accelerate 1MBB’s impact. This includes, among others, members of the “Divine Nine,” the umbrella organization of the National Panhellenic Council made up of historically black fraternities and sororities and their alumni.
Operation HOPE has been affiliated with CGI since 2015, with Bryant being a founding member. Read the full letter to the CGI community here.
About the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)
Founded by President Bill Clinton In 2005, the Clinton Global Initiative is a community of stakeholders representing a broad spectrum of society and dedicated to the idea that we can accomplish more together than apart. Through CGI’s unique model, more than 9,000 organizations have launched more than 3,900 Commitments to Action — specific, measurable new projects and programs.
About Operation HOPE, Inc.
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has moved America from civil rights to “money rights” with a mission to ensure that free enterprise and capitalism benefit the underserved, eliminating poverty for millions young people and adults with low and moderate incomes across the country. Through its award-winning community improvement model, HOPE Inside, which received an Innovator of the Year award from American Banker Magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million people and led more than 4 billion dollars of economic activity into disenfranchised communities – turning check cashers into bank customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and victims of uncertain disasters into financially independent disaster survivors. Operation HOPE recently received Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award for entrepreneurial dynamism, as well as its eighth consecutive 4-star charitable rating for financial management and commitment to transparency and accountability from the prestigious nonprofit evaluator, Charity Navigator. This year, HOPE also launched Project 1865, an initiative designed to help level the economic playing field for underserved Americans. For more information: OperationHOPE.org. Join the conversation on social media at @operationHOPE.
Contact:
Lalohni Campbell, Per/Se Media Group
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SOURCE Operation HOPE, Inc.
