When Melodie Cunningham wanted to start her own business, she called a few legal, financial and other contacts she developed while working at Visa and other companies.
But Cunningham realized not everybody, particularly many minority entrepreneurs, has such a handy list of contacts.
Cunningham’s 1-year-old business, Global Diversity Group, hopes to help those people. The company organizes conferences throughout the country to bring minority entrepreneurs together with various community organizations.
“We try to bring everybody to one place,” Cunningham said. “We find in some cities that people have not heard about or understood the value of some of their local groups.”
The 12-city tour, which is highlighted by a speech by basketball-great-turned-businessman Earvin “Magic” Johnson, swings through Chicago on Wednesday at the Chicago Hilton and Towers.
Seminars on such topics as business basics, technology, securing financing and partnering with corporate America will be held from noon to 6:30 p.m. The evening session with Johnson runs from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., followed by a VIP reception.
Aside from the VIP reception, which costs $50 and has limited space, the event is free, and people can register at the door.
The events started after Cunningham brought the idea to officials at Volvo, who were looking to build their name in the African-American community.
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“They felt ads were kind of impersonal,” Cunningham said.
Volvo officials were won over after hearing Johnson talk at an event about the troubles he’s faced in his business endeavors.
The Chicago event, which is sponsored by Volvo, Hewlett-Packard, Herbalife and others, is expected to attract 700 people, Cunningham said.
For more information, visit www.mpbnetwork.com/resource/event/chicago.html.
Bundle of criticism: Many small-business officials have praised President Bush’s effort to limit government contract bundling–the practice of combining numerous contracts into one bid–which puts smaller firms at a disadvantage.
But there is at least one loud objector.
Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez of New York, ranking Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, called the White House plan “window dressing.”
“Given the severity of the contract-bundling problem, I was hoping for a bold vision with strong leadership, but the president’s strategy lacks both,” Velazquez said in a statement. “What we have gotten from the Bush administration on small-business issues, and what we have here with the release of this report, is more empty rhetoric instead of real progress.”
A study this year by the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy found that increases in federal contract bundling cost small businesses.
Nearly 29,000 bundled contracts, worth $109 billion, were awarded in fiscal 2001, which represents a 19 percent increase since 1992. For every additional $100 included in bundled contracts, small businesses lose $12 in contracts, the study found.
The Bush plan requires government agencies to report on their efforts to reduce bundling and come up with alternatives, but Velazquez said that is not enough to protect small firms.
“If the administration is truly committed to living up to its promises, they should go back to the drawing board and start over–this time with the goal of bringing equity for small businesses to the federal procurement process, because this plan does nothing to change that inequity,” Velazquez said.