North Carolina Black Entrepreneurship Council
ABOUT
More growth-oriented Black-owned firms means more innovation, more jobs and significantly more wealth creation for Black people, impacting communities as a whole. However, the number of Black-owned firms is disproportionately low at nearly every stage of development. This Black entrepreneurship gap is due to systems that result in a lack of access, exposure, networks, funding and resources.
The North Carolina Black Entrepreneurship Council (NC BEC) was created to lead NC IDEA in its programmatic and grant making ambitions to address the challenges of Black entrepreneurship in North Carolina. The Council works closely with the Foundation to identify, recommend and support partners, grant recipients and programs to serve the entrepreneurial aspirations and economic potential of North Carolina’s Black community.
Elevating Black Entrepreneurship
Equitable entrepreneurship is vital to our economic recovery. Partnering with organizations, including our twenty NC BEC ECOSYSTEM partners, fourteen NC BEC ENGAGE partners and 5 accredited North Carolina HBCUs, creates greater opportunity to economically empower Black people with entrepreneurship, and collectively work to combat inequalities that perpetuate racial imbalances. Under the leadership of the NC BEC and less than three years after its formation, the Council has deployed more than $2 million in grants to organizations supporting Black people in their ambition to start and scale growth-oriented companies, as well as seven GROWTH grants to Black-led startups previously receiving NC IDEA SEED grants.
Celebrating National Black Business Month and 3-Year Anniversary of NC BEC
Nikita Allen
Shannon Baylor-Henderson
Dee McDougal
Kevin Price
Doug Speight
Terik Tidwell
Ray Trapp
André Blackman
Katrece Boyd
Carrie Cook
Jamila Davis
Spencer Disher
Jerry Edmonds III, Ed. D
Ijeoma Emeka
J. Hackett
Perry Harker
Tonya Lynch
Alyssa Martina
Gerry McCants
Dana Newell
Karl Ricanek
Kristi Tally
Iesha Usher
