Our Crowdfunding Groups
Thank you for your interest in the EvMBA's Momentum Campaign supporting Start:ME. This crowdfunding campaign has ended, but you can still support our Start:ME program.
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This just in, all gifts to Start:ME from March 29th – April 9th will be matched dollar for dollar! Don’t miss this chance to double your impact!
The 2019 Class of Evening MBAs have chosen to sponsor 100 percent of a seed grant fund for the 2019 Start:ME Accelerator Program Southside cohort totaling $10,000.
Start:ME (Start Micro-Enterprise Accelerator Program) is an intensive 14-week business training program for promising local small businesses. Emory's Goizueta Business School partners with community-based nonprofits to deliver the program to talented entrepreneurs who live in, work in, and/or provide valuable products and services to the local community. During the 14-weeks, and beyond, the program connects those entrepreneurs to knowledge, networks, and capital necessary to build and grow businesses.
Evening MBAs are especially in-tune with the challenge of achieving work-life balance with the additional pressures of educational development in their “off hours.” Like the entrepreneurs supported in Start:ME, EvMBAs hustle hard to achieve their audacious goals.
Small businesses represent 92 percent of all businesses in the United States, account for 20 percent of all private sector jobs, and provide powerful wealth building opportunities for owners, and tailored products and services for local customers.
Promising entrepreneurs are everywhere. The ecosystem of support that provides knowledge, networks, and capital is not.
Start:ME provides the tools necessary to help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, strengthening their communities in the process. This is our chance to invest in Atlanta, the entrepreneur talent in our city, and the neighborhoods we love!
Start:ME Southside is actively working with 16 entrepreneurs this Spring helping each to develop a business plan, a mentor a coaching network, and connections to investment capital. The 2019 Southside Cohort is made up of an amazing array of businesses including a craft brewery, a cigar bar, a sweet treats bakery, youth yoga instruction, a hair salon, skin care, home repair, and others.
Sixty-nine percent of our cohort ventures are owned and operated by women! Check out our 2019 cohort venture list to learn more about each participating venture at http://www.startmeatl.org/winter-2019-ventures.
The seed investment grant pool sponsored by EvMBAs will fund seed investment grants in three to five ventures to help new businesses get started and existing businesses grow.
Grants ranging from $500 to $4,500 will be selected by entrepreneurs in the program and awarded to the most promising entrepreneurs from the Southside cohort as seed, or capacity-building, funding for their businesses at the Spring Showcase on April 9, 2019.
Social Enterprise @ Goizueta (SE@G), an academic research center within the Goizueta Business School, aspires to increase prosperity and reduce poverty in those places where markets are currently ineffective through:
Start:ME is a flagship program of SE@G and a coalition of community partners. The Southside program is delivered by SE@G in partnership with Focused Community Strategies (FCS) and Purpose Built School of Atlanta.
In honor of our graduation, please consider a participatory gift of $20.19 to Start:ME.