Contrary to the larger society’s popular belief, entrepreneurship is nothing new to Black people. The litany of thriving Black economic centers and entire townships across the U.S. from the late 1800s to the 1960s attest to this fact.
Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) has a new initiative that seeks to build upon that legacy by helping to develop and support the next generation of entrepreneurs and professionals.
Last month, PVAMU broke ground to inaugurate the Blackstone LaunchPad, an initiative dedicated to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship among students and faculty.
“We believe joining the prestigious Blackstone LaunchPad program will greatly aid in strengthening the ecosystem and culture of entrepreneurship on the PVAMU campus,” said Dr. Munir Quddus, dean of the PVAMU College of Business. “These resources and partnerships will help our students receive national exposure and strengthen their own education and business ideas.”
The resources to which Quddus refers is the Blackstone Charitable Foundation’s (BCF) $10 million commitment across the state dedicated to promoting and facilitating entrepreneurship.
Not new to this
Often, the only thing holding blacks back from being successful in the entrepreneurial space is resources. Even with very few blacks, past and present, have made their mark as business owners.
You may recall that during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Black women were the demographic group opening new businesses at a faster rate than any other, according to research from GoDaddy.
Black women make up less than 10% of the U.S. population, but they’ve emerged as the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, new research from GoDaddy has found.
In fact, according to research from the Brookings Institute (BI), the number of Black women-owned businesses in the U.S. was trending upward even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
BI research showed that between 2017 and 2020, the number of Black women-owned businesses increased by nearly 20%, far exceeding the growth of women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses.
And Babson College researchers noted that when Black men are included in the statical mix, Black people have consistently higher rates of entrepreneurship than all other groups. On average from 2014 to 2018, about 20% of the Black population in the U.S. started businesses — compared to roughly 12% of whites and nearly 13% of Hispanics.
Still, the Blackstone LaunchPad initiative, spearheaded by BCF, is welcomed at PVAMU because since 2010 it has been instrumental in supporting entrepreneurship education and experiential learning on more than 70 college and university campuses nationwide, including 43 Black and Hispanic-serving institutions.
LaunchPad at PVAMU
PVAMU’s commitment to innovation and student success is reflected in its partnership with Blackstone LaunchPad and includes $500,000 grant to enhance entrepreneurial initiatives on campus.
“Since Blackstone, the parent company of BCF, is among the world’s largest financial organizations, this association lends prestige to our entrepreneurship program,” said Quddus. “Because of PVAMU’s membership in LaunchPad, PVAMU students minoring in entrepreneurship and others will have opportunities to participate with students from other LaunchPad member institutions to receive additional training and education and participate in competitions to sharpen their thinking and ideas.”
LaunchPad’s impact extends beyond traditional entrepreneurship programs, providing students with workshops, speakers, professional networking opportunities and access to internships.
“What the BCF is providing to our next generation of community and business leaders is truly remarkable,” said PVAMU’s president, Dr. Tomikia P. LeGrande. “With the LaunchPad program at PVAMU, our talented students can develop an entrepreneurial mindset and access key resources that will improve their career outcomes.”