Centro Community Partners (Centro)

Centro is in a growth phase and rapidly evolving to meet the growing demand for our programs and services, disrupting the micro-enterprise development ecosystem in the US and abroad.

If selected as a winner, we will utilize the funding to advance my vision as follows:

1) Partner with 150 non-profits service providers globally to offer capacity building services and  culturally relevant entrepreneurship curriculum to serve up to 4,000 individuals annually.

2) Launch a dedicated online Learning Management System (LMS), offering a seamless access to our programs and resources for non-profits and entrepreneurs in multiple languages.

3) Expand the reach of the Centro App (https://www.centro-mobile.org) to build local entrepreneurial ecosystems to connect entrepreneurs with local business support resources and capital providers to start or grow micro-enterprises.

4) Refine our processes to standardize, scale our programs and services and measure our impact in underserved communities.

I started Centro with a vision to provide equal economic opportunity to women and minorities entrepreneurs in underserved communities.  Our vision is reshaping the manner in which entrepreneurs can fully participate and contribute in creating thriving communities through entrepreneurship.  

Our purpose is building innovative pathways to democratize entrepreneurship, lower the cost of providing entrepreneurship resources and create an inclusive network of stakeholders committed to overcoming racial and gender inequality embedded in the traditional economic development system. By providing entrepreneurship education and inventing new ways to integrate training with mobile technology, we’re able to reach globally. We have lowered the cost of entrepreneurship training from the industry average of $4,500 to $1,000 per entrepreneur.  

Centro  has created scalable and replicable technological solutions that have proven to empower economically marginalized individuals, transform communities, and innovate the micro-enterprise development industry. Partnering with non-profits, micro-lenders and business support organizations in underserved communities, we want to build virtual micro-enterprise development ecosystems that bridges three major gaps: business planning; access to capital and business support services. Our goal is to assist entrepreneurs build businesses that create jobs, help them generate living wage within two years of graduating a Centro program and build wealth in underserved communities.

Small business ownership offers itself as an economic opportunity that can create generational wealth. However, the current entrepreneurial ecosystem is not well-equipped to support women and entrepreneurs of color, who continue to face racial and gender bias. According to recent reports, representing 2.2 million women and minority owned businesses in the US:

1)    People of color and women have a tougher time getting businesses off the ground due to systemic challenges and barriers (Kauffman Foundation).

2)    Minority-owned businesses are approximately three times likely to be denied loans as are comparable non-minority businesses (The Hamilton Project).

Similarly, on a global context:

1)    Women identify lower levels of entrepreneurship skills and difficulty in accessing start-up financing, as barriers to entrepreneurship (OECD).

2)    Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) represents the percentage of the adults, who are new entrepreneurs. The global TEA rate for women was 10.2%, about three-quarters of that for men. (The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor)

These issues affect millions of underserved women and minority entrepreneurs globally. To address these systemic issues, Centro utilizes mobile technology to democratize access and delivers entrepreneurship education, one-on-one business advising, mentorship, and access to capital for low-income women and minorities, via smartphones.

Innovation is a key driver at Centro and our competitive advantage lies in our approach, aiming to address the current gaps or barriers that exist in the entrepreneurial ecosystems globally. Our work has been funded and recognized by Google.org, MIT Challenge, AARP, eBay Foundation and The Drucker Institute, recognizing these systemic issues and supporting our approach.

Developed using human centered design principles, Centro’s Business Planning App democratizes access to technical assistance services, empowering low-income women and minority entrepreneurs to start or grow small businesses, access capital and business support services on their smartphones, anytime, anywhere. By providing entrepreneurship education and inventing new ways to integrate training with mobile technology, we were able to scale to offer our programs and services globally, partnering with non-profits, micro-lenders (such as Kiva US) micro-enterprise development organizations, workforce boards and public library systems.

Further, using the Centro Business Planning App, we have created virtual micro-enterprise development ecosystems accessible to women, minority entrepreneurs and underserved communities globally via smartphones, offering a pathway towards business ownership and economic empowerment. To our knowledge no other nonprofit is linking underserved vulnerable communities with enterprise building tools, small business lenders, and business resources on one platform like Centro.

Innovation, entrepreneurial desire, and motivation are distributed equally regardless of race, but opportunity and resources to exercise that innovative entrepreneurial spirit are not. We have an impact on humanity because we seek to fuel the imagination and the will of low-income and communities of color entrepreneurs by providing them resources, systems information, and the right financial tools. In doing so, impacted communities can exercise their self-determination and change entire communities by breaking the cycle of poverty through their own investment and entrepreneurial spirit.

Our effective steps-to-prosperity model begins with our shared value of empathy and the idea that all individuals have the capacity to break the cycle of poverty and build thriving communities through entrepreneurship, as long as they have access to educational and financial products that are tailored to their needs, and are culturally appropriate. We believe that the development of healthy small businesses, particularly those owned and run by low-income and underserved individuals, is one of the most effective sources of economic and social benefits. These positive impacts benefits flow efficiently from entrepreneurs to families and neighbors, transforming entire communities. This proven theory of change informs all of our signature programming as well as the products we develop.