STREETS

UNIVERSITY
Growing Our Own Entrepreneurs:
Community-Focused Future Making

 Spearmangroup 2008
Given the effect of business ownership on the
Black community and the widening wealth gap
between Black and White Americans, it’s time
to invest in our future and prepare our youth
for careers as entrepreneurs. This article
discusses the need for and lessons learned
from youth entrepreneurship education for
Black youth.
Middle and high school Black
students, especially those who
find themselves struggling
academically, too often
complain that school seems
irrelevant to both their present
and future lives. The lack of
understanding these students
have about the workings of the
market—and their place in it—
systematically denies them
opportunities for pursuing their
dreams. Consequently, without
dreams to pursue, many Black
youth have little reason to
invest in education and their
own development.
Previous research has revealed
that Black youth have the
highest entrepreneurial expectations amongst
Asian, Hispanic and White youth. However,
research also shows that Black youth do not
have access to enough entrepreneurial
programs to convert their desire into
achievement. Thus, there is need to create
more entrepreneurial programs for Black youth
with relevant vision, goals and objectives.
A 1999 study by the Office of Advocacy in the
U.S. Small Business Administration estimates
that between 1987 and 1997, the number of
minority-owned businesses more than doubled.
The revenues and number of employees nearly
quadrupled.
Much of this growth, however, came from
recently arrived Asian and Hispanic immigrants.
Moreover, Asians produced more than half of
the half billion dollars in revenue minority
businesses generated in 1997.
To help counter this trend, youth
entrepreneurial programs
have sprung up that train
youth in Black communities.
Here are some examples:
 The National
Foundation for
Teaching
Entrepreneurship
(NFTE) teaches the
fundamentals of
business to more than
4,000 low-income
kids a year. Its
business model is
typical of all the
youth entrepreneurial
programs.
 The NAACP recently
launched its $1
million Reginald F.
Lewis Youth Entrepreneurial Institute,
which helps young entrepreneurs write
and implement business plans.
 Under the slogan, "It's dough money,
not dope money," Champs Cookies
Youth Entrepreneurship Society trains
60 African-American children a year
how to manufacture and market their
edible products in the nation's capital.
On the surface, these programs seem highly
beneficial, but after a closer look, questions
arise about the lessons being taught.
WHAT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ARE
CONSIDERED?
Are Black youth taught to produce items
genuinely needed by the community, or Pet
Rocks and Saturday Night Specials? The business
product used by NFTE throughout its materials
is T-shirt silk-screening. The only important
product consideration, according to NFTE, is
that the product "must satisfy a need of the
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consumer," not the many needs of the
community.
WHAT EMPLOYEE POLICY IS
TAUGHT?
When you learn how to be an effective
entrepreneur, you also learn the importance of
paying livable wages and giving health-care
coverage to your employees. The NFTE training
program has a section on "ethical business
behavior," but the focus is on ensuring that
customers feel you are punctual, reliable,
courteous, and well dressed, and that
employees do not feel "used" – no mention is
made of the role of wages or benefits.
WHO OWNS THE EQUIPMENT AND
MATERIALS?
Is the ownership local, or is it a branch of Star-
Kist Inc. with little commitment to the
community? The NFTE entrepreneurship
materials teach that: "Businesses come in three
basic legal structures: The sole proprietorship,
the partnership, and the corporations."
However, the most popular business ownership
structures in the community – cooperatives,
municipally owned, and community stock-held
companies – are not even mentioned.
Too many youth entrepreneurship programs
measure success by the number of local
companies that become publicly owned, stock
trading companies and the number of
entrepreneurs transformed into millionaires.
This is not good because when a company goes
public the ownership link to a community is
usually broken. A dozen thousandaires who
keep ownership of their businesses local are far
more important to the community's well being
than one millionaire.
Unless an enterprise is anchored to the
community through dispersed ownership, its
owners are likely – once successful – to move to
the suburbs (or, if they are successful, locate
offshore in Mexico, India, etc). When that
happens, of course, the economic multiplier
and tax payments no longer benefit the
community.
On the other hand, businesses owned by
community residents, can become long-term
assets for local development. Unlike their
global competitors with no ties to place, who
tend to flee when labor and environmental
standards rise.
One of the few National Football League teams
that has not tried to extort a new stadium or
other bribes from the community by
threatening to move if its demands were not
met is the Green Bay Packers – a community-
owned nonprofit.
T I ME F OR A NEW MO DEL
With the widespread, poverty, homelessness,
unemployment, underemployment,
unhealthiness and criminality in the Black
community, a new model of entrepreneurship
needs to emerge. If we seriously want to
improve our situation, we must strengthen our
collective economic position.
This means working cooperatively. It also
means the motive of men becomes increasing
the quality of community instead of
increasing profit in their pockets. Increased
profit will come later from the more efficient
production of literate, healthy and happier
Black people in the community.
The new model is important for several
reasons:
First, it comes from the united efforts of
Streets University, Ikoja, Weed and Seed, local
Black entrepreneurs, community-focused
activists, and philanthropists.
Second, it addresses the What, How, and Who
(quality of community attributes). The new
model teaches Black youth that fulfilling unmet
local needs is, by definition, going to be better
for the community than exporting yo-yos.
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One such program is Urban SEED (Sustainable properly and bringing economic control to
Economic and Environmental Development), the community. The series includes a
based in Alameda, California, which encourages business-learning workbook that gives
its trainees to focus on micro enterprises that practical, hands-on, how-to instructions and
grow organic food and generate renewable email address for each student. A typical
energy. class consists of the business lesson, cultural
impact, and workshop
Another is the Detroit Farmers and group breakout
Cooperative, which operates sessions.
seven community gardens and
five neighborhood-based This article has
markets, all run by seven young discussed the need for
African Americans, 14 to 16 and lessons learned
years old. In addition, the Hope from youth
Takes Root program in Detroit entrepreneurship
employs homeless men to grow education for Black
food for local meals programs for the poor. youth.

Third, a community that moves toward self-
reliance is often rewarded with a higher
economic multiplier. Economists sometimes say
that a community should be indifferent about
whether a new business produces $100,000
worth of apples for export or $100,000 worth of
apples for local consumption, since each
injects $100,000 of productive activity into the
local economy.
However, there is a difference. In both cases,
the business realizes $100,000 of sales and re-
spends it in the local economy. However, in the
latter case, consumers also spend $100,000
locally that they otherwise would have had to
spend outside the community to import apples.
Every time a community chooses to import an
item it could just as easily make for itself, it is
giving away another piece of its multiplier.
In conclusion, a new model of youth
entrepreneurship education, Streets University,
has been developed. It comes from the
collaborative efforts of Spearmngroup, Ikoja,
Unify South Dallas, Black entrepreneurs,
community-focused activists, and
philanthropists. The new model addresses the
need for more entrepreneurial education for
Black youth, the What, How and Who quality
of community attributes and moves toward self
–reliance.
Please help build a better tomorrow for our
children and community by supporting
Streets University with your encouragement,
sponsorships, and resources.

Finally, a self-reliant community enjoys greater

tax receipts. Again, the business taxes from the
$100,000 exporter and the $100,000 import-
replacer are identical.

To satisfy the need for a new model of

community-focused entrepreneurial education
for Black youth, Spearmangroup, Ikoja, and
Weed and Seed launched Streets University.
Streets University is a youth entrepreneurial
education program taught by experienced
facilitators with both academic and industry
experience. It consist of six weekly 4-hour
classes, designed to transfer basic business
know-how , as well as, teach Black youth
about products genuinely needed by the
Black community, treating employees