Bridging The Racial Wealth Gap Through Small Business Growth
In the summer of 2020, Fast Company noted that, “For Black entrepreneurs, the racial wealth gap makes finding funding nearly impossible,” while “the first step toward solving venture capital’s diversity problem is investing in minority founders.”
A year later, in June of 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration announced new actions to narrow the racial wealth gap for communities of color. Forbes reported that this federal support focuses on two specific wealth creators: homeownership and small business ownership.
In October of that same year, the US Census Bureau stated that approximately 18.7% (1.1 million) of U.S. employer businesses were minority-owned. As such, minority-owned small businesses contribute billions to the nation’s economy, despite challenges including economic discrimination and an inequitable distribution of generational wealth.
Our work is about correcting the unequal access to wealth-building opportunities.
For over 50 years, the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) has been advocating access to the American dream for MBEs. As the oldest leading organization for “driving socioeconomic equity and generational wealth in communities of color” (Asian-Indian, Asian-Pacific, Black, Hispanic, and Native American), NMSDC and its 23 regional affiliates nationwide understand that bridging the wealth gap is the “key to creating a more united and prosperous society for all.”
As the regional affiliate of NMSDC serving Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware, the Eastern Minority Development Council (EMSDC) is proud to play a part in advancing this mission. We are “creating connections between minority business enterprises (MBEs) and corporations, MBEs and the public sector, and MBEs and other MBEs, to help them benefit from each other, stoking entrepreneurship and growing wealth for these systematically excluded communities.”
Growth for MBEs is growth for all.
NMSDC has established a vast network of MBEs and corporate members across the country, including many of America’s top companies, universities, hospitals and other institutions with supply-chain needs. As the largest national organization whose certification is uniformly recognized by Corporate America, NMSDC’s advocacy agenda consists of three focus areas: access to contracts and procurement opportunities, access to capital, and a Federal MBE designation.
These areas help fuel economic growth, not only for MBEs, but for our Corporate Members and the entire American economy. Our success is historic and unmatched: over 15,000 MBEs connected to more than 1,700 corporations, resulting in nearly $400 billion in economic output annually, generating $130 billion in tax revenue, and sustaining 1.75 million jobs.
Join us in helping to bridge the racial wealth gap through small business growth.
To learn more about the National Minority Supplier Development Council, click here.
To learn more about the Eastern Minority Development Council, click here.
For more information about the 23 regional affiliates of NMSDC, click here.
The Eastern Minority Supplier Development Council (EMSDC), a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization, is an affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). We certify and connect minority-owned businesses (Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American) throughout Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware with member corporations that want to purchase their products, services and solutions. Our mission is to stimulate and support the economic development of minority-owned businesses and to better align them with corporations in an effort to initiate growth and opportunity through Supplier Diversity channels.