Foundation for Community Driven Innovation (FCDI)

The Equity in Entrepreneurship (EE) program is hosted at FCDI's Advanced Manufacturing & Robotics Center (AMRoC) Fab Lab at University Mall (soon to be RITHM at Uptown) in Tampa. The program is open to all area residents with priority given to Black, Brown, and Women early-stage (nascent) entrepreneurs interested in turning a side hustle, informal business, or an idea into a sustainable, reliable income source for themselves and their families.

Led by a local Entrepreneur-in-Residence, the program is offered evenings after work hours and includes child care.  The EE program consists of 3 distinct but sequentially progressive entrepreneurship education phases: the Big Idea Brew Club, where participants learn how how to turn their idea into an MVP; the StartUp Club LaunchPad providing financial and legal education, Business Model Canvas development, & basics to formally launch a business with a capstone 1 Million Cups presentation and micro-seed funding at the end, and finally the Cruise Club with a deeper dive into financial education, time management, strategic marketing, and long-range planning.  

EE participants have access to a dedicated community of mentors with expertise across a wide range of business fields, as well as rapid prototyping and fabrication resources and tools at AMRoC, and a growing Community of Practice comprised of previous program grads building out a hyperlocal local small business support network. 

AMRoC Fab Lab is located in an Opportunity Zone & Community Redevelopment Area that is predominantly Black & Hispanic, and where residents are facing challenges of gentrification.  The population of 44,000 residents are mostly renters with a median annual income of $24,000. With much of Tampa's startup support services focused on tech-oriented businesses, community-facing businesses that Uptown Tampa is built around - food, home services, personal care, clothing and accessories,  arts and entertainment -  are often underappreciated and overlooked, despite their immense economic, social and culturally-enriching impact.

According to "The Color of Entrepreneurship: Why the Racial Gap Among Firms Costs the U.S. Billions" (Global Policy Solutions), "America is currently forgoing an estimated 1.1 mill. businesses owned by people of color because of past and present discrimination in American society. These missing businesses could produce an estimated 9 mill. more jobs and boost our national income by $300 billion. Thus, expanding entrepreneurship among people of color is an essential strategy for moving the country toward full employment for all."

In more relatable numbers, 10 startups a quarter in Uptown can generate $100,000 in revenue. Supporting more companies, especially community-based businesses, means greater economic potential for all. COVID-19 upped the reliance on side-hustles to help make ends meet in Uptown, and inspired a lot of people to explore becoming self-employed.  The EE program is designed to tap into and maximize that drive for self-reliance to build economic resiliency in a changing community.

The FCDI EE program very clearly and specifically works to connect small business owners and key stakeholders with the relevant experience to improve coordination, collaboration, and knowledge bases within the small business ecosystem - that's what everything in the description above, on how the program is innovative, is all about.  

Program mentors serving in this urban small business program consist of 

• College and university small business professors, including a Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship mentor, who bring a normally inaccessible level of academic expertise to early-stage entrepreneurs
• Area small business owners who know the local business scene and have gone through similar experiences as program participants and can share back what they've learned and how new entrepreneurs can benefit from their experiences
• Financial experts from banks and financial institutions that support the EE program, who provide both personal and business financial literacy programming as part of the program, which also speaks to our second area of alignment, "Assisting with access to capital, capital campaigns, and/or financial education and information."

For many in our community debt and poverty are generational, so we work within our community to build financial education from the mindset of entrepreneurship and highlighting the resources available through our mentorship program.  Participants are also eligible for small seed funding grants upon completion of the program and are further networked with supportive financial institutions and funding agencies that can pave the way to more robust capital.

The program prioritizes access to Uptown Tampa residents within a 5-mile radius of University Mall, which includes four high-needs zip codes: 33604, 33612, 33613, 33617.  Also known as the University Area for its proximity to the University of South Florida(USF), about 35% of residents are Hispanic and over 30% African American. Nearly half of the residents live below the poverty level (United for ALICE data). 

The majority of residents are renters and as the University Area - a designated Opportunity Zone - undergoes redevelopment to a "mixed-use city center", impending gentrification creates stressors and challenges like soaring housing and food costs which, coupled with low service wages make it difficult, if not impossible, to keep up.  Many residents work in the service and health care industries in the area, where wages lag behind the national average.  

To help make ends meet, people in the area often work 2nd jobs or have a side hustle.  Many we've spoken with have ideas about how to make extra income or dream of having their own business and being their own boss.  While these nascent entrepreneurs may have some solid money-making ideas, they often are not at the level of development that makes them good candidates for traditional entrepreneurial support programs like SBDC or accelerator programs. More importantly, they're not aware of possible resources, nor are they extended opportunities, or onramps to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

Our solution provides that onramp. It serves people where they are and then in partnership with local business mentors with first-hand familiarity with the challenges, helps bring them to an equitable level of access to the Tampa entrepreneurial ecosystem, helping make self-employment attainable.

The FCDI Equity in Entrepreneurship program is being implemented in Florida.

Our mission is to empower and build capacity in the community we serve, and to that end, launching small businesses without helping them become sustainable seems disingenuous. While primarily the EE program is designed to launch new businesses in the Uptown Tampa area, we feel a responsibility to help these new businesses stay in business by creating a strong support network and community of practice around them.

Our Theory of Change for the Equity in Entrepreneurship program is based on the research-supported premise that early-stage entrepreneurs, particularly women and BIPOC, lack access to the Tampa startup ecosystem and related resources. Most area startup programs cater almost exclusively to tech startups, so there is little support for the more common and relatable personal services and product businesses found in our service area.  

The aim of the Equity in Entrepreneurship is to help bridge the race and gender equity gap in early-stage entrepreneurship to create more inclusive pathways to the Tampa Bay startup ecosystem.  Our inputs into this effort include funding, staff, childcare for participants, wifi, computers, and workspace.

We have three principal activities through which we aim to achieve these ends:

• Big Idea Brew Club which helps participants understand the idea development process and create a marketable minimum viable product (MVP)
• Entrepreneurs StartUp LaunchPad to help early-stage entrepreneurs formally start their business, and earn some seed funding, and
• Entrepreneurs Cruise Club helps entrepreneurs enter into the next stage of small business ownership, access additional funding and higher-level start-up resources

Our outputs are:

• Weekly mentor-led workshops
• Mentor pool for support and guidance
• MVP
• 1 Million Cups presentation
• LLC or similar legal business structure
• $500 micro seed funding

Our outcomes include, in the short term, entrepreneurs who understand:

• What it takes to make an idea marketable
• The time commitment needed to make a business viable and sustainable
• Basic business vs. personal finances fiscal literacy
• How to create a solid "pitch" through 1 Million Cups presentation capstone project

In the medium term, committed participants will have a fully registered new business and understand:

• Financial management and planning systems and strategies
• Media and marketing strategies
• Completed customer personas

And in the long term, have reached the stage where they have:

• A Sustainable business plan in place for new businesses
• Are well- connected to the appropriate startup resources and support
• Are able and interested in serving back into Equity in Entrepreneurship Community of Practice to support new incoming businesses
• Consistent referrals from our network and for new incoming entrepreneurs

Since 2020, the Equity in Entrepreneurship program has helped start or relaunch 27 businesses, over 80% of which are Black and Brown-owned and over 50% women-owned.  

Directly, we currently serve 8-12 people per cohort, up to 24 people per year.  Our aim is to increase that number to 30-40 people per year by 2023 and by 2027 to annually serve up to 50 people per year.  

We believe this is the most reasonable number of individuals to serve in a meaningful way, to help people develop sustainable new small businesses or make existing ones more sustainable, profitable, and resilient. 

The end goal is strong businesses that last and are profitable for their owners, that can hire staff, bolster the local supply chain, and generally create a positive and enduring impact on the local economy in a way that strengthens the overall community. 

Geographically, the Uptown Tampa area is about a 10 sq. miles includes the area around the University of South Florida to the east, the University Area Community Development Corporation just to the north, Busch Gardens area to the south and Nebraska Avenue to the west.  Portions of the area also include the City of Tampa and the City of Temple Terrace.  

Culturally, the area is predominately Caribbean, Hispanic (Chiapas), and has a significant Nigerian community, as well. In addition to FCDI, other nonprofit stakeholders include UACDC, the Caribbean American National Development Organization (CANDO), the Haitian Foundation Association, Casa Chiapas, WellFed Community, Pioneer Medical Foundation, the Underground church, Winners Resource, and Metropolitan Ministries.

The Haley VA, Advent Hospital, Moffit Cancer Center, and the Tampa Innovation Partnership together influence much of the redevelopment strategy in the area, for which FCDI works to buffer residents against gentrification underway. 

To bring together the many cultural, corporate and community organizations, and agencies and create transparent and accessible avenues of communication between all of us and residents, our nonprofit launched the Uptown Tampa Community Collaborative in 2020.  The Uptown Tampa CC holds quarterly meetups at AMRoC Fab Lab, and shares announcements of different events, programs, and activities by members of the Collaborative on a variety of social media channels.   Members work together, voluntarily and cooperatively, to assist one another in our community efforts, to help network and advocate for one another, and to keep everyone connected and informed about ongoing redevelopment efforts. 

The Uptown Tampa CC is accessible and diverse, intentionally and purposefully inviting everyone to the table in the service of our beloved Uptown Tampa community.  Over the last two years, the group has grown in membership and scope,  ranging from the local community health charity to food security organizations, to the county library system , social enterprises, the county Small Business Development Center, and the area Innovation Partnership.  The UTCC collaborates on projects like our current effort to create a "digital twin" of Uptown Tampa, to help stakeholders and investors see needs, challenges and opportunities in real-time, and helping one another recruit participants for everything from workforce education programs, to apprenticeships and job opportunities,  to the Equity in  Entrepreneurship program.

Mentors from the Equity in Entrepreneurship program hail directly from the Uptown Tampa CC, just as we serve back into other UTCC member needs. And launched businesses are supported and patronized by Collaborative members.   We regularly attend Collaborative members events, programs, and festivals, and they ours, hosting tables and workshops, helping with volunteers and in the case of our Fab Lab, creating trophies, 3D printed models and more to help our Collaborative neighbors.  In this way, the Uptown Tampa community sees us all working together and trusts that programs like Equity in Entrepreneurship are sound and dependable. 

We build trust by building relationships within the community we serve, through active participation in community events and programs, working collaboratively with other area organizations.

We are also physically present in the community, at festivals and events, celebrating local heritage in partnership with cultural organizations who we invite to create window displays in our space and host events like Caribbean Heritage Month and Juneteenth celebrations at AMRoC Fab Lab. We participate in holiday giving events with other local groups.  

Our outreach and communications methods are also not confined to the Internet but include intentionally inclusive onsite signage and messaging, creative flyers, and videos in our window display area - the kinds of things that passers-by will see as they walk through the mall where we're located.

We also host frequent public meetups and events at our facility and provide food and childcare in our programs.

The Specific goals of EE are:

• provide an equitable onramp to small business ownership in Uptown Tampa
• prioritizing for BIPOC residents, with the aim of 
• utilizing entrepreneurship training as a pathway to personal fulfillment, economic empowerment, and ultimately improved social and economic outcomes for individuals, families, and the community. 

Measurable outcomes include: 

• number of people from the prioritized community who participate in the program relative to 
• number of businesses launched and their 
• sustainability over time. 

Participants and mentors are surveyed during and after programs and supported through a growing Community of Practice. The success of these community startups after 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years are our main quantitative outcomes as we seek to support the creation of successful and sustainable businesses. 

We can Achieve these outcomes because of the strong mentor base of Relevant expertise at the heart of the EE program.  EE is led by an Entrepreneur-in-Residence who lives in the community and has first-hand experience dealing with the challenges faced by BIPOC business owners in the existing entrepreneurial ecosystem. Mentors are experienced business owners, academic leaders, and past participants who serve back because they believe in the ultimate vision of an equitable entrepreneurial community.

As consistent outcomes of sustainable local businesses are established the program is intended to be scaled over the next 5 years to other communities to help build resilient local economies.  We are developing a companion virtual program and plan to scale our curriculum for youth to learn innovation-based economic principles.

We have an amazing, diverse, and dedicated team of passionate, compassionate, energetic, and imaginative individuals!   

Our Entrepreneur-in-Residence is local to Uptown Tampa, a Black Fintech company founder with first-hand experience of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs of color in finding support, funding, and respect in the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Our entire team together - FCDI Board members and executive staff- have a combined over 50 years of experience in effective community capacity building.  Board members, most of whom are part of the EE support team, include Intellectual Property attorneys, bankers, and small business owners, work with the Small Business Development Center, have expertise in everything from finance to automotive technologies, and spearhead workforce training initiatives.  One of our team members is an immigrant founder from Venezuela, with intimate knowledge of the challenges faced by new citizens in starting their own businesses.  

Together, our mentors and program organizers look like the community we serve and are committed to helping others experience sustainable success in the development of their new business by sharing their own challenges and the solutions they found along their journey.

We also have purposeful partnership agreements with Florida High Tech Corridor, USFs Florida Inventors Hall of Fame, and Aecern Learning, with whom we work to create educational resources and mentorship opportunities for ages 12+  - a multigenerational approach that allows everyone in the community to have a stake in developing their local area to support the needs of the people that are here.

Truist in Tampa has been a community partner since the start of the FCDI Equity in Entrepreneurship program in 2020, and we're excited to have an opportunity to partner with Truist at a new level, through MIT Solve. 

We believe the MIT Solve Challenge will help us connect with more human capital in the way of program mentors and help us raise awareness of the importance of hyperlocal community-facing small business support for nascent entrepreneurs.

Having a larger support network and access to more expertise and mentoring resources can only be a benefit to this program and help us continue refining it to a scalable level that could benefit other communities in addition to the Uptown Tampa community.

We believe partnering with MIT Solve will help us bring important and effective new tools and resources to bear on our effort to improve our outreach and support to the Uptown Tampa community and to reach more nascent entrepreneurs with our Equity in Entrepreneurship program.  More importantly, we believe MIT Solve can help us achieve long-term success in the way of small business sustainability in the Uptown area, helping the new businesses we launch achieve sustainability earlier, and for the long term.

We would like to partner with more financial institutions, and more start-up support organizations like Embarc, here in Tampa, and the Minority Business Accelerator in the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, Enterprising Latinas, and related organizations.  I think helping these organizations see the value and long-term impact of supporting nascent entrepreneurs would be a powerful motivator for developing sustainable small businesses in the Tampa area and creating avenues of resiliency against impending gentrification in Uptown Tampa. 

We would like to reach a point where investors take pride in supporting the nascent entrepreneurs coming out of our programs and serve back into the Equity in Entrepreneurship program with mentors as well as financial support for these new businesses, and through their own patronage of these businesses.