GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It’s safe to say the climate for business owners of color in Grand Rapids is less than ideal.
According to the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, 98% of business revenue generated in the city comes from white-owned businesses. What’s more, of all the businesses that make $250,000 each year or more, only 1% of them are black- or brown-owned.
This month, the Chamber launched their new Center for Economic Inclusion. The aim is to provide resources that black- and brown-owned businesses have been lacking for decades: technical assistance, help obtaining certifications, loan referrals, CEO mentorship programs, employee training and more.
“A big part about it is really getting them connected to existing resources in the city already,” said Attah Obande, who leads the new center. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We’re not trying to be duplicative, there’s a lot of great organizations out there doing good work for businesses.”
Obande says the chamber has already made partnerships with banks and CEOs who have signed on to be mentors. For business owners like Tony Hartz, the direction isn’t just sorely needed, it’s necessary. Hartz now runs the Bop Shop – a custom design printing service – out of his home but used to have a storefront near Burton and Division. He had to close during the pandemic, getting no loans, no assistance, and operating with no guidance.
“Yes, I had the building, I was a business owner, but my direction wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” he said.
Hartz has high hopes for the chamber’s new initiative, but implored city leaders not to forget that simple things make an enormous impact. Often times, he says, a new coat of paint, window replacement or even new sign can help drive business and attract customers.
“They don’t want to stop because you got homeless people on the corner, you got trash right here, you got an empty cigarillo pack right here,” Hartz said. “And they’re like, well why stop here when you can go downtown and smell the flowers and spend $50 on a shirt instead of going to the Bop Shop and spending $20?”
Ricardo O’Neal with the group Neighborhood Activation Project was also hopeful Tuesday as he met with the center’s leaders. Their organization helps fix up homes and neighborhoods, providing free repairs and beautification – often times offering the work to black- and brown-businesses. He hopes the new center will buttress resources with more grassroots efforts like those being undertaken by NAP to create more successful, thriving business districts.
“These businesses have to be educated, there’s no way around it,” O’Neal said. “The education is very much needed, the technical assistance is very much needed because a lot of the black and brown community have not had the richness of that education that other communities have.”
O’Neal has been frustrated by the growth of areas like downtown and the Wealthy Street corridor that’ve seen swift revitalization and gentrification over the course of only a few years.
“We can’t put a tree on one corner and leave the next corner barren, that’s not gonna work,” O’Neal said metaphorically. “We have to plant trees all the way down the street.”
“We’re figuring out what we’re going to do with these black and brown neighborhoods, and we’re watching the neighborhoods around us grow exponentially,” he continued.
There’s an economic case to be made for a more diverse distribution of resources, too. A recent Goldman Sachs study showed that by helping a million black-woman-owned businesses (the fastest growing sector of entrepreneurs), the nation’s GDP stood to grow by an estimated $450 billion. A similar study conducted by the GR Chamber showed that just injecting a small amount of help into black- and brown-owned businesses could grow the city’s economy by $6 billion annually.
For business owners like Jeff Kimbrel, who’s owned Painting by Jeff in Grand Rapids for nearly 40-years, the lack of resources to minority businesses has been generational. He’s seen business lost to glitzier, out of town painters, who charge more for the same job, simply because he doesn’t have the funds to expand.
“We may work harder, but sometimes we are not given the opportunity. If we were given the opportunity, it would be different,” he said. “We don’t have sometimes the collateral they have…the loans to get better equipment. Those little things really help.”
Weeks before the pandemic began in 2020, Kimbrel’s other business, Sophisticated Gentleman’s Club – a community space that hosted fundraisers, events, after-school tutoring and even funerals – burned down. Since then, only the foundation and the sign remain. Kimbrel, despite being in the community for decades and performing all sorts of pro bono work for elderly clients and clients with cancer, can’t get access to resources.
“No one’s knocking our doors down saying, Painting by Jeff, out of all these things you’ve done in Grand Rapids, can we build this for you, can we help you build this? Can we put a roof on for you?” he said. “Nope, all we can do is just sit back and just keep our fingers crossed and hope somebody comes to give us a hand.”
The Chamber hopes this new center will be that extended hand so many exhausted business owners need to succeed. With the right knowhow, the gap may just close.
