Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin speaks at the announcement event for The Alliance’s Small Business Advisory Services.
The Birmingham Business Alliance (The Alliance) has launched its Small Business Advisory Services to help curate a marketplace between buyers and suppliers, get buyers and suppliers ready to do business and drive collective impact on jobs and dollars throughout Birmingham.
Generously funded by Prosper, The Alliance’s Small Business Advisory Services will work with a series of cohorts, over six-to-eight-month periods, with the goal of serving 250 companies and creating 1,300 direct jobs over the next five years. The program will provide customized solutions designed to prepare local companies to do business with the region’s largest employers, many of which are members of The Alliance. It will focus on second-stage growth companies – those that have survived startup, achieved early growth, and are poised for further growth and scalability.
“We believe that growing small, scalable businesses headquartered in the region’s core is one of the most sustainable ways to drive long-term job growth and wealth creation across our communities,” said Ron Kitchens, CEO of The Alliance. “Our Small Business Advisory Services will help bridge some difficult gaps for both small and large businesses and make connections that will drive job growth in the local economy.”
The Alliance is seeking 20 eligible local small businesses to participate in the first cohort, Supplier Scale, which will begin in January. Applications to join Supplier Scale are open until December 1, 2021, to privately owned companies headquartered in Jefferson County that employ 2 to 10 people, and/or generate between $100,000 and $999,999 in annual revenue. Applicants should demonstrate interest in growing within the Birmingham region and to potential customers outside the region.
The program will be led by The Alliance’s small business team, local partners and business experts, and it will utilize programs and curriculum from Interise, a nationally recognized small business development organization. Since 2004, 9,000 small businesses across more than 80 cities have participated in Interise programs, providing guest experts, CEO mentoring groups, training, program assessment, and communications and development support, among many other things. According to the nonprofit, Interise businesses have created jobs at 11 times the rate of the private sector, with minority-owned business revenue increasing by 37 percent on average.
The Small Business Advisory Services expands The Alliance’s goals to advance women- and minority-owned businesses, as well as compliments current work leading the VITAL (Valuing Inclusion to Accelerate and Lift) program for the City of Birmingham and facilitating the Inclusive Procurement Council, which meets monthly to discuss best practices and connect with local small businesses pitching their goods and services to a curated group of buyers.
Catalyzing the growth of businesses and industries that create jobs is a focus area for Prosper, which is a local effort to align existing initiatives around job creation, job preparation and job access.
“Birmingham is a community where people help people, and our community is a great place to live, work, and do business,” said Kelly Caruso, Shipt CEO and Prosper board member, who co-chairs the initiative with Jefferson County Commissioner Steve Ammons. “I’m proud to support the Small Business Advisory Services program as they are doing important work to support the advancement of businesses and people in our city.”
Prosper President J.W. Carpenter said he is excited by the partnership to build a more prosperous and equitable future for Birmingham.
“Prosper is excited to partner with the Alliance and our Board of Directors to launch the Small Business Advisory Services as we work to collaborate to build a more prosperous and equitable future,” he said. “If we want to be successful as a region, we need to support and invest in a diverse group of local entrepreneurs as they work toward scalable outcomes which can catapult their businesses and Birmingham and Jefferson County."