Our Crowdfunding Groups
Thank you for your interest in the Start:ME COVID-19 Small Business Resilience Support Momentum campaign. This crowdfunding campaign has ended, but you can still support our Start:ME program.
Since 2013, Emory, along with local partners and volunteer business mentors, have helped more than 200 small businesses start and grow right here in Atlanta through the Start:ME Accelerator Program. These small businesses make a BIG impact in the local neighborhoods of Clarkston, East Lake, Kirkwood, and Southside Atlanta. In addition to providing products and services to their neighbors, these small businesses employ more than 300 individuals and provide critical income within these neighborhoods.
Our motto as Start:ME is that entrepreneurship is a team sport. We’re rallying our team together to raise funds to support Start:ME alumni ventures so that they can remain resilient during this great economic uncertainty that COVID-19 has created. Our first COVID-19 business impact survey illustrates the challenges that small business owners are already facing (as of March 22, 2020):
Please make a gift now and join us in supporting the Start:ME business owners and those they employ remain resilient today and tomorrow.
A gift to the Social Enterprise at Goizueta- Start:ME Program will provide small business resilience support to alumni ventures now and over the next year as they enact COVID-19 continuity plans.
Funds will be put to work in a variety of ways based upon the needs of Start:ME alumni ventures that are identified via ongoing impact surveys. Support to these ventures includes emergency continuity grants, traditional business transition to online sales support, special learning and expert advisory sessions, and more. Thus far, Start:ME has already invested in several laptop computers that are currently being loaned out to business owners that did not have the necessary technology to operate remotely.
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.
