The investment will help entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and businesses of color start and grow their business.
On Wednesday, May 1, the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) held a Virtual Briefing announcing a partnership with 15 local community-based organizations to launch the Economic Mobility Initiative (EMI), a $25 million investment to support the startup and growth of local entrepreneurs, businesses, and nonprofits.
“This initiative kick started thanks to Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell across 3 motions in the past two years,” said Kelly LoBianco, director the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity. “She launched an economic mobility motion as well as subsequent commercial acquisition fund motion and a worker ownership motion.”
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LoBianco continued, “The economic mobility initiative has a couple of things in addition to leveraging American Rescue Plan dollars and making sure they get into the hands of those that need it most especially to help them recover in the wake of the pandemic, we know folks have not recovered in total yet.
“It builds the capacity of our office of small business to reach scale in the region. This initiative is seeking to reach scale through our office of small businesses and doing that in a collaborative effort with 15 plus partners.”
The DEO is working with trusted community-based organizations, who will help bring programs and services that directly help small businesses overcome barriers to their own startup and success. The EMI will focus on serving women-led and Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC)-owned small businesses and connecting them to wealth-building opportunities.
“Ultimately our goal is to make sure that BIPOC women and other historically underinvested businesses in our region have access to education to technical assistance, training and capital that not only allow them to start up and grow, but really help their businesses thrive and help build generational wealth in our own communities,” said LoBianco.
EMI is built to be a coordinated and collaborative support system that centralizes services for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and nonprofits in three areas, including: Technical Assistance and Training, Access to Capital and Commercial Space, and Entrepreneurship Academies.
The centralized hub, managed by the DEO and its Office of Small Business, aims to reach 10,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses. This includes helping approximately 320 entrepreneurs, small business owners, and nonprofits build skills, providing grants or loans to approximately 250 businesses and entrepreneurs, enroll approximately 500 county residents seeking to start or grow a business in entrepreneurship academies that build early-stage entrepreneurship knowledge plus provide access to mentorship by local business owners and need-based stipends.
“We’re really, really excited that in our second year of our department we’re going bigger for our small businesses during small business month and hosting 5 small business summits,” said LoBianco.
LoBianco continued, “We’re hoping to have thousands of folks join us. What folks can find there in addition to the 50 plus booths, we also have a bunch of great speakers and panelists talking about everything from capital to contracting and procurement and we know how important that is every single day for our small businesses community, but also as we’re thinking about the major investments that are coming into the region, whether it’s the Olympics and the other sports events leading up to it like the World Cup or because there are major federal investments.”
The DEO held their first small business summit on April 29, kicking off Small Business Month at the L.A. Coliseum with over 50 partners and over 500 small business owners in attendance. According to LoBianco, there will be more Small Business Summits happening in each of the supervisorial districts including at Mission College on May 9 and at Cal State L.A. on May 15 with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis.
You can visit lacountyemi.com and opportunity.lacounty.gov for more infomation.
