Minority Businesses Receive Federally-Funded Head Start

by MICHAEL THIER Seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars are up for grabs.
The Brooklyn-Queens Minority Business Opportunity Center (MBOC) recently received a three-year grant from the Minority Business Development Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The grant will be used to bolster African-american, Asian-american, native american, hispanic and hasidic entrepreneurs.
The Queens County Overall Economic Development Corporation (QCOEDC)offers start-up loans to businesses in their first three years of operation. Retail, service and manufacturing businesses with annual sales below $2 million can receive loans from $5,000 to $50,000 with an 11.5% prime rate plus a floating 3% that is adjusted annually.
Interested parties can contact QCOEDC at (718) 263-0546.
MBOC weds for the first time the QCOEDC to the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation. The organizations had independently served their respective boroughs for two decades.
"If any part of the work force is disenfranchised in any way, we all lose," said MBOC director Pat Williams.
MBOC strives to deliver development and management products to minority-owned businesses. MBOC’s programs include financing, entrepreneurial assistance training, procurement opportunities, certification, partnering, mentoring, credit assistance, marketing techniques plus technology and real estates services.
"Any minority business owner in Queens and Brooklyn is welcome to call us," said Marie Nehikian, QCOEDC’s executive director. "No one will ask if you’re 51% X or 49% Y. You’ll define yourself as a minority business owner."
Maria Rivera, whose Jackson Heights-based Educate-Motivate counsels clients on goal-setting and personal development through education, recently graduated MBOC’s Educational Assistance Training.
Rivera credits the 10-week program with furnishing her with a business plan, one that her 10-month-old business did not have before her April 21 graduation. The 10-week program included 25 hours of technical assistance in addition to required labs.
Rivera transcended her newfound business plan into an educational plan for her clients. Now she focuses more on goal-setting than on student placement.
"I don’t want to just drop them there and assume they’ll be successful," she said.
Also, Rivera, who remains in close contact with QCOEDC, networked with other public and private sector QCOEDC clients.
"There was a guy from the library and he liked what I was doing. Now I’m going to be a speaker at the library," she said.
Besides training and networking opportunities, QCOEDC and MBOC offer a variety of programs to bolster minority business. The Queens organization will host a Sept. 1 open house at Queens Borough Hall and invite future and current business owners to take classes on marketing and economic trends taught by small business professionals.
QCOEDC will also sponsor a conference Sept. 17 called "Minding Your Own Business" for Queens women.
Besides their programs, Nehikian said some of QCOEDC’s most important work involves establishing links, or project/opportunity partnerships, between business so they can form symbiotic relationships.
"We want to keep these companies and jobs in Queens so we’ll try to find someone local," she said.