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Creating Wealth While Black by Kayode Crown
September 16 - 29, 2020 • jfp.ms
Shante Crockett, the executive director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship, seeks to transform west Jackson by creating opportunities for wealth creation.
Crockett and her team are designing a plan of action for the neighborhoods to help move the residents move themselves up the economic ladder. She has clearly defined opinions about what has led to poverty inside Jackson’s Black communities. “The problem in our neighborhood is that unemployment is high, education is low, and residents and infrastructure continuously age. Business development has suffered due to a low percentage of skilled and certified workforce,” Crockett said in a statement on the Kellogg grant application made available to the Jackson Free Press. “It’s time to reverse the trend.” Her plan will involve technical assistance for micro-businesses, entrepreneurs and residents’ workforce development. “When you are trying to start a business, you need resources,” Crockett said. “You don’t need just financial resources, you need human resources, you need people to guide you and help you along the way.” Challenges in Growing Business Crockett says the challenges of development for Black businesses is more about financial management and marketing than the excellence of their delivery of goods and services. She realized that those deficiencies hinder wealth creation in Black families and that without a business plan, success is elusive. “The Black-owned businesses do an excellent job,” she said. “If they are cooking, if they have a restaurant, they do a
great job, they cook great food. If they are a service person, they are barbers, they do a great job of cutting hair. They are good at what they do.” “(Many new entrepreneurs) are not so good in the business aspect of it, meaning having financial bookkeeping in place, having a marketing plan, those kinds of things,” Crockett added. “They are not great at that. As a result, a lot of businesses fall to the wayside because they are not sure of how to do the ‘business’ side of the business.” Crockett emphasized the need to grow a business by obtaining a loan from a bank. A business needs a plan, capital to put up a marketing plan, she noted. “Most Black-owned businesses in our area are one- or two-man shops,” she said. “They need financial resources to grow the business.”
nomic development of iVillage will be done by Jan. 31, 2021. “The goal is to get an implementation grant once we finish the research,” she said. “If we are so lucky to get it.” $10 million Investment In Hope Netflix’s investment of $10 million in Hope Credit Union in June 2020 marked the largest single deposit since its founding in 1995, Hope’s Chief Operating Officer Pearl Wicks told the Jackson Free Press in an interview. Wick said the foreseeable impact of the money in Black communities is helping close the wealth gap. She defined the racial wealth gap in terms of the disparities in liquid assets, saying the difference between Black and white people in Jackson is larger than the national average. “In Jackson, 61% of Black households do not have enough savings to cover three months of expenses to live above the poverty line,” she said. “In
Intergenerational Wealth “Our ultimate goal is to increase the intergenerational wealth for young families through entrepreneurship and workforce development, technical training and financial literacy,” Crockett said. “And so from the entrepreneurship side, we will be doing research to find out what services are needed in our area and who can provide those services, and once we find out who can provide the services that are needed, we will help them start their business.” Those who don’t want to start businesses will get help to improve their employment potential and increase their earning power and climb Hope Credit Union Chief Operating Officer Pearl the workplace ladder Wicks says a relationship with financial institutions protects from exposure to predatory lenders. through skills training. “We have underskilled labor or unskilled labor,” she said. “We want to help in- contrast, this rate is only 25% for white crease their marketability, help increase households.” skill on how to get a better job, or get a Black-owned banks, credit unions job—period.” and community-development finan The planning process for the eco- cial institutions have been much
courtesy Hope Credit Union
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A Plan of Action A $56,841 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in May is helping CSE support work in racial equity, community engagement and leadership development to transform communities. With a focus on west Jackson,
courtesy Shante Crockett
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t was a rude shock when Shante Crockett moved to west Jackson with her family in 2014. The infrastructure of the area is crumbling with many abandoned buildings, and crime is a concern. Businesses followed white flight from that previously thriving part of the city, hollowing it out, and poverty is high. “I was a little nervous about moving to this part of town because I lived in a place where it did not look like this, where you can call suburbia,” she said in a phone interview with the Jackson Free Press. “And so when I moved to west Jackson, I complained about a lot of the problems that were going on here: the mental health issues, the homelessness.” Over time, Crockett overcame her initial reaction to the problems. She is now the executive director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit organization that adopted an area in west Jackson, now named iVillage, as a laboratory for its transformation efforts. “I transitioned from complaining to being an advocate,” Crockett said. “You know I have always been taught that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” “This community in west Jackson is overlooked and underserved,” she added. The Center for Social Entrepreneurship is focused on bridging the gap with government resources and from philanthropists in order to enhance the quality of life of the people. The iVillage consists of 43 blocks in west Jackson. “The perimeters are Jackson State University Parkway to Roach Street to Capitol Street to Prentiss Street, and those are our boundaries,” she said. The “i,” she said, stands for five things: international, internet, interconnected, individualism and innovation. The Center for Social Entrepreneurship prioritizes education, housing improvement, community engagement and economic development in the iVillage.
