AMDR Foundation Inc.

AMDR Foundation’s approach to providing individual entrepreneurs specific training is people specific and centered. The process involves taking each entrepreneur on a personal journey that is meant to create awareness of their rights and equip each of them with the right skill set and confidence to thrive in their businesses.

The following support is given to each entrepreneur:

Heightened Awareness of Governing Business Laws: This training will equip entrepreneurs with awareness of the laws that govern business operations within their geographical operational areas. It creates awareness of the rights of entrepreneurs, legal rules of business operations, and the essential elements of the legal systems.

 Training on Marketing: This training will give entrepreneurs a competitive advantage in marketing their products and services. The training is focused on upskilling entrepreneurs on the topics of marketing strategy, content marketing, use of social media for marketing, brand management, and arming them with data analytical capabilities.

 Training on Streamlining business processes: This training is targeted to help entrepreneurs recognize and leverage the appropriate strategic processes to build functional systems that will help their keep businesses together and run more efficiently with minimal resources.

 Training on Social Capital Growth: This training will allow entrepreneurs to be more appreciative and aware of their social resources - such as building relationships with more connected people (vertical connections), others like themselves (horizontal connections) or membership of groups and organizations people draw upon to create economic opportunities.

Women are deciders, leaders of communities, and influential change agents in society. As key members of every society, women and girls continue to face discrimination based on their gender. This bias deprives them of their basic rights to safety, autonomy, and employment, also prohibits them from accessing opportunities that can advance their quality of life and well-being.

 Women and girls are facing acute hardships, including higher rates of poverty and job loss, increased family care burdens, and greater exposure to violence and harassment. Women are overwhelming absent from decision-making processes in crisis responses and resilience measures.

 AMDR Foundation recognizes that that COVID-19 pandemic stalled businesses, jobs, services, and negatively impacted the economic and social lives of millions of people. Women’s particular vulnerabilities were aggravated and experienced especially by those who are primary caregivers, health workers, migrant workers and the many women working in informal industries.

 According to the Bureau and Labor Statistics, the cost of college textbooks, tuition and fees rose by about 160% between 2000 and 2020. This was however not marched with an equal rise in average hourly wages which only rose by about 80% in the same period. The disparity makes entrepreneur education and innovative incubators very costly especially for women and minority groups in the country.

 AMDR Foundation seeks to bridge the education and training gap for women and minority groups in entrepreneurship and innovation in Atlanta, Georgia which has a workforce of up to 5.1 million people that offer a range of skills and diversity.

The cost of education and access to training having gone up two-fold in comparison to average hourly wages makes it an uphill battle for many in the state of Georgia especially for women and minority groups that have been disproportionately affected by the COVID -19 pandemic.

 AMDR Foundation understands the need for heightened awareness of business laws by delivering the principles in terminology more suited for the audience and individual entrepreneur specific education and training on marketing, streamlining business processes, and social capital growth for the women entrepreneurs and those in minority groups.

The creation of awareness and trainings fall under two sections of the challenge namely:

• Offering focused guidance/professional development for building specific functional skills for internal staff such as strategic planning, human resources, process improvement, and research and testing products/services; and
• Supporting and fostering growth to scale through comprehensive and relevant technical support assistance such as legal aid, fiscal management for sustainability, marketing, and procurement. 

According to U.S Census Bureau, 51.4% of the population in the State of Georgia is female. Of these, there about 58.6% that are above 16 years and are in the civilian labor force (2016-2020). Georgia has a per capita income of about $32,427 for the period 2016-2020. There about 376,506 women owned business and 371,588 business are owned by minority groups in Georgia (2012).

 AMDR Foundation works with women and minority group entrepreneurs to create awareness of business laws and provides individual entrepreneur specific education and training on marketing, streamlining business processes, social capital growth. This will see higher retention and more entry of women and minority group entrepreneurs and innovators across a spectrum of businesses in the State of Georgia.

 AMDR Foundation creating awareness and offering the training to women and minority group entrepreneurs gives opportunity for them to retain most of their per capita income within their households freeing up more money to invest in their businesses and access better social services.

The trainings are individual entrepreneur specific which translates to tailor-made solutions for each business where the entrepreneur is involved. This people driven approach gives better results because the entrepreneurs are involved at a personal level therefore invested.

AMDR Foundation has no current plans to expand our solution. The market opportunity for our innovative entrepreneurial education and training is lucrative bases on the growing number of minority women-owned small business that are being established. A significant percent of these businesses are being operated in an ad hoc manner with some entrepreneurs overwhelmed with their current responsibilities and unaware of the resources that are available to them. AMDR Foundation aims to reduce the chance of business failure through education and training.

AMDR Foundation's mission as an entrepreneurial innovation incubator serving as a bridge between the challenges faced by underserved women and the opportunities and resources that will help them to reach their ultimate goal of a successful business venture, is to both help launch and sustain small business through education, training, and linkages to resources. 

Impact:

• Women and minority group entrepreneurs in the State of Georgia experience a positive change in their businesses and;
• More women and minority group entrepreneurs and innovators startup businesses that get to experience, on average, their fifth year or more.

 Activities:

AMDR Foundation’s strategy to bring change at the above two levels are built upon several years of experience and includes the following activities:

• Awareness Creation in Business Laws
• Training in Marketing principles
• Training in Streamlining business processes
  
• Training in Social Capital Growth

Outputs:

The activities are expected to result in the following for women and minority group entrepreneurs: increased access and control over resources, greater voice and decision making, and more effective relationships for knowledge sharing, leadership, and higher visibility for women and minority owned businesses.

 Outcomes:

This will contribute to the following outcomes women and minority group entrepreneurs: more women and minority group owned business startups, higher pay scale for women and minority group entrepreneurs and innovators, more goods and services availed for consumers in the state, and greater tax collection for the State of Georgia.

Our solution currently serves 6 recipients. With additional funding, we project that in one year it will serve up to 30 participants. In five years, we project that we will serve up to 200 participants.

The community that the AMDR Foundation serves is minority women ages 18 to 80 in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Our organizational strategy is influenced directly by our target group in the community. Stakeholders include, participants; mentors i.e. the 3 Directors and business leaders from various industries; funders; government agencies i.e. SBA, SCORE; private companies; and local government i.e. the City of Atlanta.

AMDR Foundation carries out routine surveys among the members of the community to better understand which businesses women and minority group entrepreneurs trend towards. These surveys are extended to partner organizations and community leaders as part of the buy-in process.

AMDR Foundation staff members are often involved in community gatherings and town hall meetings in the different communities in which we work survey. This participation is to better understand the needs of the different populations we work with and the communities they in which they operate.

AMDR Foundation is often part of the gatherings in the communities in which we work where we also share information of our work and involvement.  Contact information is collected at these gatherings that is then used to create mailing lists where brochures, success stories and other relevant information is shared.

AMDR Foundation aims to develop a strong alumna network which is meant to bring together former members of the awareness campaign and training programs. These members of the network are tasked to lead an awareness campaign in their communities about the benefits of the programs offered by the Foundation.

 Social Media outreaches and campaigns are also a big tool for the AMDR Foundation where success stories and information on the programs offered by the foundation are shared.

AMDR Foundation has a goal of increasing the reach of our awareness campaign and the training sessions offered within the next year.

The next five years will see an increase in the number of women and minority groups owning and operating businesses in the State of Georgia. This will also translate into better pay rates for the staff of these businesses which in turn improves their standards of living.

 AMDR Foundation plans on leveraging technology in its operations to increase the efficiency of the awareness campaign and training programs through a reduction in the cost of operations while scaling.

The lead team at AMDR foundation is made up of experienced professionals that have over 10 years’ experience in entrepreneurship development. President/Director of the Foundation, Alicia Graham is responsible for the strategic direction and supervision of all business operations for the foundation. The president began her career as an entrepreneur of several successful start-ups, including an agri-venture project in the breeding of queen bees, under the auspice of the European Union, where she worked with at-risk youths by providing workshops, training, and start-up resources for beginning beekeepers.  

Camile Collins a Director of the Foundation is a seasoned marketing professional who applies her diverse corporate experience to helping young girls and women in the underserved population advance their entrepreneurship goals.

Michele Storr a Director of the Foundation is an experienced project manager. Having led a large team for a Fortune 500 telecommunications company. Her passions is helping women in underserved communities through preparedness training.

The team participates in continuous learning courses in the different aspects of entrepreneurship development. The team also undertakes regular planning meetings to help plan for and allocate available resources.