New program seeks to help create more Black Businesses

The Kukua Institute started a program "Startups on the Blocks" to help  Blacks start their own businesses.

As the death of George Floyd has reawakened discussion of racial inequity in America, local and national corporations pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to fund and support Black-owned businesses.

A local organization, the Kukua Institute, is launching a new program aimed at helping people of color learn to start their own businesses and to tap into the many resources that can help them turn their entrepreneurial ideas into realities.

The program, Startups on the Blocks, is a networking and education initiative intended to connect Black business founders with mentors, best practices, office space and potential collaborators. Lloyd Reshard, chairman of the board at the Kukua Institute, said most programs that support startup companies expect the enterprise to be somewhat established when they come in the door.

Startup on the Blocks is aimed at folks who are truly just getting started and who may have a vision but not a concrete path forward.

"This about helping people who have ideas to solve problems," Reshard said. "They may work in a hospital, or a law firm, or the banking industry, or they could be working in a cafeteria or as a janitor, but they see a problem and they have an idea to solve it."

Read the rest of this Pensacola News Journal here: https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2020/08/11/startups-blocks-program-provid...