Columbus Chapter Of Commerce Provides Free Black-Owned Businesses With Chamber Membership

The Columbus Chamber of Commerce is set to partner with the Columbus Urban League to improve 30 Black-owned businesses in the city. This partnership is set to provide full-year chamber memberships for these businesses, which involves perks line marketing support, and access to high-level consulting. The partnership also looks at connecting black-owned business suppliers to the selected businesses, in line with their plan to increase spending by about a million dollars.

In a statement, Don DePerro, the Chamber President and CEO, said, "It’s about advancing these entrepreneurs in our community, hopefully bringing them more business and more contracts than they had the opportunity to get on their own. I knew that the Urban League had a tremendous presence in the Black business community, and we needed some help with the diversity of our membership. It’s just a perfect marriage.”

According to the Chamber President, the entire program is worth about $50,000 and continues in the path of the Minority Small Business Resiliency Initiative, a program put in place last year to improve access to capital for Black business owners. This is in a bid to help create an infrastructure where black businesses can thrive. 

Averi Frost, who manages the program, said that it helps delete some obstacles for small businesses that can’t afford the high membership costs.

“There is value to being a part of a chamber of commerce, not only through access to the different supplier diversity initiatives or general sales, but it helps with legitimacy,” said Frost, who is also executive director at the Central Ohio African American Chamber of Commerce. “If people are not from here, and they're looking at doing business in the city of Columbus, they do look at the chambers of commerce to see who's available. So, being on that platform is very important.”

One of the businesses that benefited from this is J's Sweet Treats and Wedding Cakes on Parsons Avenue. According to the owner Williams, "The Chamber has been phenomenal. They've already talked with us about a marketing plan and put us in touch with someone from Yelp so that we could (increase) our presence. They come in and they buy things. We haven't had a lot of opportunity to network with other business owners."

According to her, this is especially important as Black-owned businesses historically don't get the support that a lot of other businesses do.

Another beneficiary TJ Johnson, whose company Tra'Bia Enterprises was selected said,

“They focused on making sure that African American businesses had access to capital. In addition to that, the webinars and the business speakers played an integral part in our business success. Without their advocacy and their support during this tumultuous time, I don't think that we would be where we are.”

The program has helped businesses secure about $7.6 million in funding and created some 1,250 jobs since its inception last year.