Flyte

The Entrepreneur Empowerment Program works directly with business owners, with over 80% of each cohort is comprised of Black women from low- to moderate-income households. Each member of our cohort is given access to the same resources over this period including:

• 16+ hours of personal and business finance training 

• 5+ hours of nonfinancial business training 

• 30+ hours of professional mentorship and financial coaching

• Connections to loan providers prepared and willing to loan to business owners that do not qualify for loans from traditional banks

• Access to free and low cost professional resources through our partnerships with banks and colleges in the region

• Direct support developing loan applications

• Stipends to assist with the cost of urgent business expenses

The program was structured in response to the requests of the business owners, taking place virtually to minimize transportation costs and time and at a slower pace to accommodate competing responsibilities.

We expect to see all businesses in the program able to comfortably track income and expenses using accounting software after the first three months. We expect over 80% of businesses will see improvements in both personal and business credit scores within the first six months. Over 50% of the businesses will have secured a capital request by the end of the program. By the end of the program, all participants will be able to make confident financial decisions that increase their likelihood at growing their business in the long-term as well as ensuring the financial future of their family. 

We focus intentionally on Black women due to the many deep, systemic barriers they face as they try to start and run a business. Nationally, women of color start businesses at a higher rate than any other demographic, yet only 3% of Black women are running a mature business, far lower than any other group. The numerous challenges of childcare, especially for women who are single mothers, create even greater obstacles to ensuring healthy and sustained business growth.

An entrepreneur’s lack of access to capital serves as the biggest determinant of business failure. For those lacking personal savings or generational wealth that can act as collateral on a loan, an issue for every community of color in the country, financial health and personal relationships with financial institutions acts as the biggest barriers to capital access. While 30% of businesses fail across all demographics, 80% of Black-owned businesses fail within the first 18 months. 

And the pandemic has only made this worse: despite the launch of the Paycheck Protection Program loans to help small business owners survive, only 20% of loans went to areas with a high concentration of Black-owned businesses. It is unsurprising that since the start of the pandemic, Black-owned businesses have closed at twice the rate as white-owned businesses.

These inequities reflect a larger, systemic trend of Black owned businesses and communities shut out of traditional financing mechanisms. Without targeted intervention, this widening disparity will lead to a significant, near-irrecoverable economic gap. 

At its foundation, the Entrepreneur Empowerment Program is designed to grow and sustain women-led, racially diverse small businesses. The program components and structure were designed specifically with the unique challenges and needs of Black women business owners in mind, including the length and cadence of the program. Unlike other programs, we structured this program to be a yearlong initiative. So many programs supporting small businesses provide short, intensive programs to account for the cadence and speed of well financed, white-owned businesses. But in the development of this program, the women we have worked with indicated that they needed a program that both required fewer hours per week of their already stretched time, and a program that will work with them over the time period necessary to learn, implement, and reinforce the functional skills they need to successfully manage their business’s finances. 

The ultimate goal of this program is to support these businesses in accessing capital to support and foster their growth. The initial professional development and ongoing mentorship aims to build their foundation, strengthen their sustainability, and ultimately apply successfully for capital to expand their business. In addition to the direct technical assistance, we also provide introductions to our network of funders, including CDFIs, banks, and individual investors all looking to diversify their portfolios. We then work directly with the businesses to compile and strengthen their applications for that capital, as well as developing plans to effectively spend and track the capital. 

Historically, 85% of participants across all of our programs come from communities of color and 70% identified as women. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1.26 million, 45% of whom identify as BIPOC. In the city of New Orleans itself, that number rises to 70%. Despite making up a majority of our community, the disparity between BIPOC and white households is wide, with an $82,000 gap in median net worth.

Flyte’s experience working with business owners over the last three year led to the design of the Entrepreneur Empowerment Program and the specific targeting of low-income BIPOC women business owners with children. The feedback we received in the development of this initiative indicated that the existing small business support programs are too limited in scope and length.

SCOPE | Because of the structure of the traditional technical assistance model, financial coaching is limited to the entrepreneur’s business finances. But for the youngest and smallest businesses, personal and business finances are always intertwined. Typically, entrepreneurs use their personal accounts to receive revenue and pay their bills, with deep implications for the financial health of the entrepreneur not well equipped for tracking their business expenses. Most of these businesses do not have assets, and if they do, then they are personally owned. So any debt application relies on the personal assets of the entrepreneur.

We would like to expand this program beyond South East Louisiana into Alabama, Texas and Florida. This program is extremely scalable and our only barrier to growth is funding for personnel. 

Yes. That's our core mission. 

The Entrepreneur Empowerment Program aims to work with the smallest business owners, particularly women with children and limited resources, to develop the skills and prepare their finances to successfully approach institutions for capital to grow their businesses. With that capital, they can grow their businesses, accruing assets and increasing their income. The ultimate goal of the program is to close the gap in net wealth and build generational wealth. 

To evaluate the process and immediate outcomes of the program, we track detailed financial and nonfinancial information for each participant throughout the program. Success for us will show that each participant has been able to learn and successfully apply the knowledge from their learning in the day to day operation of their business and in their own and their families’ personal lives. 

In 2021, we ran a pilot of the Entrepreneurial Empowerment Program. After 12 months we tracked the following outcomes:  

•  Average personal credit scores improved by over 36 points, with some increasing by 100+

• All businesses were fully incorporated, licensed, and had business bank accounts vs half at the start

• All businesses separated personal and business finance vs half at the start

• All businesses were using software to generate financial statements vs less than half at the start

• There were 16 successful capital requests including lines of credit, credit cards and business loans ($300k of loans, 200K of grants, $30k of revolving credit)

• Businesses were more successfully able to manage the impacts of COVID and Hurricane Ida than equivalent peers

• Each business connected with at least 6 professional resources during the program 

Access to financial products, specifically access to capital for businesses, is highly impactful on generational wealth. The ability to scale businesses and build wealth correlates directly with the ability to access financing to capitalize on business opportunities and build revenue. Flyte addresses the most significant barrier to capital access for the smallest businesses: financial knowledge and preparation.

50 a year. We hope to hire two additional team members in the next year if we secure necessary funding. This would allow us to serve up to 300 businesses annually. 

We serve black women from LMI households. Typically it is women who are responsible for the finances in the households we work with. Many are single mothers and have nobody else to lean on for help.

We have extensive relationships that we have built over five years with black-led community organizations that promote our work. They have seen the enormous good we have achieved on our program and understand what we are trying to achieve. 

While it is unusual to see a white, male led nonprofit that serves Black women, they understand that my motivations are based on a deep desire and passion to better the communities we live in. 

As discussed previously, I have spent five years working closely with a number of Black-led community groups, leaders and organizers in order to gain trust and respect. Having 50 business owners entrust their personal and business success to someone does not come out of a void. It takes respectful dialogue, discussion over a long period of time. The testimonials and word of mouth in the New Orleans community has been crucial to our success as an organization. 

Earning the trust of the Black community when you are a white, male, emigre transplant takes hard work and dedication but we have shown that it is very much possible if approached in the right manner. Hiring women from the communities we represent is our next step and we are very excited to do so when we have the necessary funding!

A combination of meetings, dialogue and showing the community the success we have had on our programs. They understand that our work is not there to change or gentrify the city. We simply want a stronger and more resilient small business community and families that can build generational wealth. Our desire to achieve this is motivated for the love for the city and a passion for community development. People who are familiar with us and our work can clearly see that. 

We aim to scale up to at least 100 businesses on our program next year. We expect the impacts to be in line with previous programs but at a larger scale. 

• Average personal credit scores improved by over 40 points, with some increasing by 100+

• All businesses are fully incorporated, licensed, and had business bank accounts vs half at the start

• All businesses separate personal and business finance vs half at the start

• All businesses are using software to generate financial statements vs less than half at the start

• There at least half the cohort have successful capital requests including lines of credit, credit cards and business loans ($600k of loans, 400K of grants, $60k of revolving credit)

• Businesses are more successfully able to manage the impacts of inflation, high rates and hurricanes than their peers

• Businesses connect with at least 6 professionals 

We have already run a successful one year pilot and launched an expanded second program. We have already established an strong framework that we have built with partners and professionals over five years. We expect the success of our pilot to be scaled up as we work with more business owners every year. 

Despite the strong framework, we would benefit enormously from experienced human capital as our organization expands in the coming years. 

Because I passionately believe in what we are doing at Flyte. I meet every entrepreneur on our program at least every two weeks on our program so outside of the raw data, I get to see these entrepreneurs embed best practices into their family finances, build wealth and plan for the future. I get to see them get their first clients, start paying themselves and securing their first loans. It gives me immense joy and pride to see something that I have spent thousands of hours working on over five years is changing lives. It's something that no amount of money can ever buy. 
I believe in our model and that it can be expanded on a larger scale and be a force for tremendous good around Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Texas and beyond. 
The many resources provided by this Truist Foundation grant would give us the ability to scale our program's capabilities up dramatically. 

Assistance preparing grant applications to state and federal level providers. 

I'm currently a one man band. While this has been a tremendous learning experience for me, there are only so many hours in the day! I would love to tap into the tremendous resources provided by this grant to further improve our business model, outreach and fundraising capabilities. While we have been able to do a lot with one employee and a limited budget, we simply need more human capital to expand our reach. This opportunity would provide that. 

• Large corporations and nonprofits
• Federal agencies 
• Individuals who are passionate about small business and community development
• Fundraising organizations