EvMBA '24 Class Gift for Small Businesses in Atlanta

After 3 years, our MBA goal is in sight. We’ve learned and benefited from the Emory network and connections with professors, alumni, and our cohort in numerous ways. This spring, the 2024 EvMBAs are continuing the tradition from past classes of providing a class gift. This is our chance to invest in Atlanta, the entrepreneur talent in our city, and the neighborhoods we love! We have chosen to establish a fund for Start:ME.

The Start:ME Accelerator Program is starting and growing Atlanta’s small businesses.

Start:ME strengthens underserved communities in metro Atlanta by empowering entrepreneurs to start and grow resilient microbusinesses. When they thrive – generating income, creating jobs, occupying spaces, providing role models – their neighborhoods do too. Start:ME provides business training, mentorship, and grant investment capital, coupled with ongoing alumni support.

Start:ME is delivered for free to all entrepreneurs by Emory’s Goizueta Business School, in partnership with trusted community-based nonprofits, including the East Lake Foundation, Focused Community Strategies, Friends of Refugees, and Purpose Built Schools Atlanta. Start:ME will also be expanding to a fourth community in the fall.

Evening MBAs know the challenges 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.

Your gift matters to small businesses and thriving communities.

Though individual microbusinesses are small, collectively, they generate a big impact. Similarly, with everyone’s contributions, our class gift will help to ensure Atlanta communities can thrive.

To date, Start:ME has served nearly 400 local microbusinesses – collectively they employ over 700 people in addition to the founders, operate 65 brick & mortar locations, and generate nearly $20M in annual revenue. 83% are led by people of color and 72% are female-led.

Start:ME provides the tools necessary to help entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, providing critical income to business owners and their families, and strengthening their communities in the process.

Want to see the 2024 program in action?

Join for the graduation celebration on Thursday, 5/16 at GBS. RSVP here.

Visit startmeatl.org to learn more about Start:ME and other ways to get involved.