Nonprofit gets $1M grant from Gates Foundation
A Boston-based nonprofit has been awarded $1 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help small, minority-owned businesses.
Interise received the grant to fund its Small Business STRONGER initiative, which helps established small businesses in low-income communities to create new jobs and grow generational wealth.
“When we found out, we were ecstatic because our goal all along was to be as impactful as possible, and this grant will allow us to do that,” CEO Darrell Byers said. “And that’s needed now more than ever because of the pandemic.”
Over the last two years, Black, Indigenous and person-of-color, or BIPOC, businesses have closed at a rate two to three times more than white-owned businesses, he said.
“It’s imperative that we erase those barriers,” Byers said.
Small businesses from around the country apply to go through the program, which averages about 1,200 businesses annually, he said.
Over the course of six to seven months, business owners work on a threeyear growth plan that’s broken into five modules: finance, strategy, human resources, customers and sales and marketing, said Deirdre Coyle Jr., Interise’s senior director of strategy.
“The goal is to have them no longer working in their businesses, but on their businesses,” Coyle said. “But they will not have an opportunity to grow unless they can recruit and retain employees.”
In addition to the nonprofit’s 20 full-time employees, it has 50 to 80 contracted instructors and hundreds of guest experts around the country to coach them in those areas, she said.
Vicki Gray, owner of New Chapter Home Improvement in Cambridge, had been through several other programs to little effect when she applied for Interprise’s,
so she was dubious at first.
But since she graduated from the program in 2018, she has gone from a business of one employee to four year-round, and another five to six during painting season, she said.
“I found it an effective education program for business leaders who want to grow,” Gray said.
On average, businesses that go through the program see a 30% increase in revenues and a 20% to 40% increase in the jobs they create, Coyle said.
“We create high-quality jobs,” Coyle said.