Tampa Bay Black Chamber of Commerce event flyer

TAMPA– The Tampa Bay Black Chamber of Commerce is launching a one-million-dollar campaign to support local minority and family-owned businesses. 

The chamber found that business owners are the second-highest demographic for suicide in the United States. Because of this, they are naming it a public health emergency. As part of their campaign, the chamber is launching a “No Business Left Behind” initiative that will serve five hundred entrepreneurs in the Tampa Bay area. Their goal is to raise upwards of $1 million for these entrepreneurs. 

Kimmisha Michels, the vice president of the Chamber’s board, says the program will refresh the way people are taught to design a business. 

“How we were taught to build a business is outdated,” said Michels. “It is built on old systems. And with all this technology coming in. It’s not taken into consideration on how we should build businesses today in this environment. And so, it can cause a lot of frustration for business owners, so we wanted to build programs that actually address those issues.”

The Launch

The chamber is kicking off their campaign on Saturday, April 4,  where they will introduce their D.R.I.V.E program. D.R.I.V.E incorporates five different programs that are meant to decrease business failure, mental health crisis, financial desperation and isolation. All while increasing resilience, revenue stability, innovation and community wealth-building.  

They are partnering with the Florida Medical Clinic to provide free health screenings at the launch event. Along with a raffle to raise funds, with prizes such as gas cards, oil changes, car washes, dinners and more. 

“The goal is to raise the million dollars so that we can service those vulnerable businesses by giving them the support that they need without it being tied to, oh well, you financially don’t qualify,” said Michels. “So the money actually goes into the programming, providing stipends for businesses, but not only that, but micro grants, we wanna be able to give and we also wanna do direct micro lending.”

The event takes place at Genesis of Tampa from 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.