JUST LOOKING FOR ANY INFO PERTAINING TO THIS

THANKS

....to we will be giving a few events and we are looking for people and their groups that may be able to support us and help us in our building of a stronger black awareness in the Niagara Falls NY area......
thanks.....i will post the dates and the events at a later time

Why not start with a simple networking group and see where it goes from there? Invite a number of black businesses in your area to a 'get together' and expand things as feasible.

There already is a Black Chamber of Commerce ...National Black Chamber of Commerce. It is an interesting website with lots of good information on in, but I agree that we should start small business networks in our own communities.

New group forms black chamber of commerce


By Fred Tannenbaum
Charlotte Business Journal
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET April 3, 2005


In a bid to boost the prosperity of small, local black-owned companies, a group of African-American business leaders has formed a Charlotte-Mecklenburg chapter of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

Organizers want to help small companies owned by African-Americans obtain the financing they need to get started, operate and grow. The chapter's founders also want to help those companies compete for city and county contracts and land jobs as subcontractors.

While the Charlotte region has a number of successful African-American businesses, local black chamber organizers say those success stories represent only a fraction of the area's black-owned companies.

"I don't see where there has been any effort to really reach out and address the needs and concerns of African-American business people," says George Brown Jr., the new chapter's president and chief executive. "Everyone knows the need is there."

Many companies struggle because they lack access to capital, the chapter's founders say.

The National Black Chamber is a Washington-based nonprofit formed in 1993 with the goal of boosting business opportunity in African-American communities. That mission will be a high priority for the Charlotte chapter, organizers say.

"In order for Charlotte to reach its full potential, no one community can be left behind," says Brown, an industrial engineer. "This is not solely a black issue."

Small businesses owned by African-Americans need resources that are focused totally on them, says Bill McCullough, who runs McHenry & Associates, a consulting firm that helps minority-owned companies find financing.

Charlotte Business Hub Inc., a newly established small-business referral center, is a valuable new resource, but it might not always provide what these companies require, he says.

"The BizHub is a great idea," McCullough says. But "it's not directed toward minority firms."

Similarly, he and other black chamber organizers see a gap in the programs offered by the Charlotte Chamber. Also, McCullough says a Charlotte Chamber membership, which costs about $400 per year, may be too steep for African-American-owned companies with limited resources. Black chamber business memberships will start at $150 a year.

The Charlotte Chamber hosts a number of diversity programs that reach out to African-American-owned businesses and professionals. The chamber's Diversity Business Council is aimed at helping minority- and woman-owned companies find business opportunities and grow. The council helps them build partnerships with majority-owned firms that can generate business, says DeLissé Thomas, chamber vice president of diversity programs.

The council is open to businesses as small as mom-and-pop companies, she says.

The diversity council's signature event is an annual procurement conference where business owners can meet with major corporations that are Charlotte Chamber members. The city and county offer pointers on how to apply for local government contracts, Thomas says.

"The color of doing business is green," she says. "We're just trying to make sure we can be a great resource for each other as we try to make Charlotte entrepreneur-friendly."

Still, local black chamber organizers wonder if such programs are enough.

The local chapter recently was chartered by the national organization and is forming a board of directors that so far includes McCullough and Madine Hester Fails, president and chief executive of the Urban League of Central Carolinas.

The black chamber also has begun mailing membership applications to area companies, hoping to recruit about 150 members.

Among the new chapter's top goals is filling a gap organizers say was created in late 2003, when the city canceled its Minority- and Woman-Owned Business Development program. That affirmative-action program helped minority-owned businesses receive city contracts, but it ended when a group of contractors threatened to sue.

A subsequent city study noted disparities between minority and white contractors. Little has been done to resolve the inequities identified in the study, McCullough contends.

Other priorities for the black chamber include cutting red tape for small businesses.

Brown learned about that issue first-hand last year. He had recently moved to Charlotte, was setting up his engineering company and wanted to register it as a minority-owned firm.

The city's registration form, Brown contends, was as complicated as a mortgage application. "It was ridiculous."

Another goal is to ensure African-American-owned small businesses will benefit during the 2006 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament. The CIAA, whose member schools are historically black colleges and universities, is moving its post-season tourney here from Raleigh, where the event generated a $54 million economic impact during a five-year run.

"Those are black dollars from the black community," Brown says. "What benefit will the black business community here see from that?"

McCullough says Charlotte needs a black chamber because "you've got housing, job and infrastructure disparity (in the black community) and very few people concentrating on those things that make up a real, bona fide, sustainable community."

The black chamber will join other ethnic business groups in metro Charlotte, including the Latin American Chamber of Commerce, the Asian Chamber of Commerce and the East Asian Chamber of Commerce.

This isn't the first time the African-American business community has tried to organize here. The now-defunct Metro Charlotte Black Chamber of Commerce was active in the 1990s. Some observers believe that group fizzled because it focused too narrowly on ways for minority-owned businesses to secure city and county contracts.

Organizers of the new chamber believe its survival will be bolstered by a broader emphasis on economic development.

Harry Alford, National Black Chamber president and founder, notes a chapter already operates in Winston-Salem.

"We're trying now to develop people locally, statewide and regionally," he says. "This country is as strong as its weakest link, which is the African-American community."

© 2005 Charlotte Business Journal