SA Small Businesses

Our strategic plan for economic development, Prosperity, reduction in crime, lower unemployment rates and increased educational attainment. We have identified three strategies and action steps that must be taken to increase equity in New Orleans. The first is preparing our workforce: we have to strengthen our system to con­nect peo­ple with jobs and train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. By devel­op­ing dema

nd-driven work­force pro­grams with key train­ing and pri­vate sec­tor part­ners, we can fuel the growth of the bur­geon­ing cre­ative dig­i­tal media and bioin­no­va­tion sec­tors and reestab­lish our strength. Fur­ther­more, by map­ping clear career lad­ders within these indus­tries, we can raise aware­ness of career oppor­tu­ni­ties for young and make local hir­ing a reality. The sec­ond is pro­mot­ing entre­pre­neur­ship and small busi­ness devel­op­ment.Solu­tions include a vari­ety of pro­grams and tools, such as incu­ba­tor mod­els to grow small busi­nesses, increased coor­di­na­tion across pub­lic & pri­vate enti­ties, increased access to cap­i­tal oppor­tu­ni­ties, and coor­di­nated tech­ni­cal assistance. The third is to pro­mote equity as an eco­nomic growth strat­egy to busi­ness lead­er­ship. We must develop and sup­port strate­gies to con­nect dis­ad­van­taged busi­nesses with oppor­tu­ni­ties through mentor-protégé pro­grams.By fos­ter­ing strong rela­tion­ships between minor­ity and major­ity busi­nesses, we will over­come the chal­lenges of inclu­sion and access by build­ing capac­ity and uncov­er­ing syn­er­gies to build a uni­fied busi­ness culture. Busi­ness Capac­ity Build­ing Pro­grams: Sup­port the work of pro­grams that edu­cate and inspire the busi­ness lead­ers of tomor­ro. Career Lad­ders: Sup­port and par­tic­i­pate in pro­grams and ini­tia­tives that pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for our cit­i­zens to secure jobs and train­ing. If you are a job­seeker, these sorts of pro­grams can be crit­i­cal to help­ing you dis­cover a new path. Local com­pa­nies are invited to engage to cre­ate more employ­ment part­ner­ships. Access and Men­tor­ship: If you are a cor­po­rate decision-maker, I encour­age you to iden­tify new oppor­tu­ni­ties to work with local minor­ity owned busi­nesses, either in busi­ness part­ner­ships or through men­tor­ship. There is much work to be done. Achiev­ing the goals of Pros­per­i­ty and increas­ing equity in busi­ness will require invest­ments of time, money and resources. Busi­ness lead­ers must stand together as a com­mu­nity, for ourselves, and gen­er­a­tions to come.