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WHAT EMPLOYEE POLICY IS TAUGHT?
When you learn how to be an effective entrepreneur, you also learn the importance of paying livable wages and giving health-care coverage to your employees. The NFTE training program has a section on "ethical business behavior," but the focus is on ensuring that customers feel you are punctual, reliable, courteous, and well dressed, and that employees do not feel "used" – no mention is made of the role of wages or benefits.
WHO OWNS THE EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS?
Is the ownership local, or is it a branch of Starkist Inc. with little commitment to the community? The NFTE entrepreneurship materials teach that: "Businesses come in three basic legal structures: The sole proprietorship, the partnership, and the corporations." However, the most popular business ownership structures in the community – cooperatives, municipally owned, and community stock-held companies – are not even mentioned.
Too many youth entrepreneurship programs measure success by the number of local companies that become publicly owned, stock trading companies and the number of entrepreneurs transformed into millionaires.
This is not good because when a company goes public the ownership link to a community is usually broken. A dozen thousandaires who keep ownership of their businesses local are far more important to the community's well being than one millionaire.
Unless an enterprise is anchored to the community through dispersed ownership, its owners are likely – once successful – to move to the suburbs (or, if they are successful, locate offshore in Mexico, India, etc). When that happens, of course, the economic multiplier and tax payments no longer benefit the community.
On the other hand, businesses owned by community residents, can become long-term assets for local development. Unlike their global competitors with no ties to place, who tend to flee when labor and environmental standards rise.
One of the few National Football League teams that has not tried to extort a new stadium or other bribes from the community by threatening to move if its demands were not met is the Green Bay Packers – a community-owned nonprofit.
TIME FOR A NEW MODEL
With the widespread, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, underemployment, unhealthiness and criminality in the Black community, a new model of entrepreneurship needs to emerge. If we seriously want to improve our situation, we must strengthen our collective economic position.
This means working cooperatively. It also means the motive of men becomes increasing the quality of community instead of increasing profit in their pockets. Increased profit will come later from the more efficient production of literate, healthy and happier Black people in the community.
The new model is important for several reasons:
First, it comes from the united efforts of Streets University, Ikoja, Weed and Seed, local Black entrepreneurs, community-focused activists, and philanthropists.
Second, it addresses the What, How, and Who (quality of community attributes). The new model teaches Black youth that fulfilling unmet local needs is, by definition, going to be better for the community than exporting yo-yos.
One such program is Urban SEED (Sustainable Economic and Environmental Development), based in Alameda, California, which encourages its trainees to focus on micro enterprises that grow organic food and generate renewable energy.
Another is the Detroit Farmers Cooperative, which operates seven community gardens and five neighborhood-based markets, all run by seven young African Americans, 14 to 16 years old. In addition, the Hope Takes Root program in Detroit employs homeless men to grow food for local meals programs for the poor.
Third, a community that moves toward self-reliance is often rewarded with a higher economic multiplier. Economists sometimes say that a community should be indifferent about whether a new business produces $100,000 worth of apples for export or $100,000 worth of apples for local consumption, since each injects $100,000 of productive activity into the local economy.
