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By Antonio Ray Harvey | California Black Media
The California Black Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc. (CALBCCF) is offering “game-changing opportunities” for mini micro, micro, and small business proprietors of the state at the Economic Business and Roundtable Statewide Summit 2022.
Under the theme, “Pitch Your Business,” the summit is scheduled to be held in Sacramento on Friday, Sept. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Embassy Suites Sacramento Riverfront Promenade.
Jay King, the president and Chief Executive Office of CALBCC, said the Economic Summit provides a different outlook and “a bold new journey into the ecosystem of business and how it’s effectively done.”
Startups or established businesses attending the summit will be able to present their services to potential clients on the spot or set up a bidding process in the near future. Interested individuals will be able to explore employment opportunities at the two-day event.
“This is not the same format that it has been in the past,” King told California Black Media. “We’ve been working with California Transportation (Caltrans) and DGS (California Department of General Services), to identify contracts that smaller firms can bid for and win if not at the summit days afterward. We will have workshops but all of them are interactive.”
A workshop on how to pitch a bid will be held on the first day of the summit. The pitch presentation is scheduled to be done in front of a panel of corporate judges with the hope of winning investment capital.
The next day, the participants will pitch their business concept with a chance to land $50,000 in capital. Two second-place winners will receive $25,000 each, and 10 functional businesses each have a chance at $10,000 in cash prizes.
“We are only awarding businesses in the state that have done all the hard work. It’s difficult running a small business,” King said. “Because small businesses are macro (a business that makes less than $100,000 per year) or mini macro (less than $35,000 per year), especially in the Black sector, it’s extremely difficult. About 96% of the African American businesses fit that description.”
The Economic Summit will feature Black chambers of commerce from across the state, including operations from Los Angeles, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego.
Wells Fargo, Lyft, UC Davis Health, the city of Sacramento, the Department of General Services, and the Black Small Business Association are Economic Summit sponsors.
The Economic Summit was created to bring “change makers” together with minority-owned businesses with a mission to create meaningful economic opportunities to increase spending with small businesses and strengthen the conversation of small business diversity, equity, and inclusion, King said.
The Summit is also set up to assist interested homebuyers. King said attendees will have a chance to see if they qualify for a home loan.
The summit will feature guest speakers Chris Horton, National Black Entrepreneur Project, Ann Tompkins, Director of Professional Services at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis); and Mike Condrin, Chief Operation Officer at UC Davis.
The California Black Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Inc. was created as a public charity dedicated to education, training, community growth, and youth entrepreneurial development. Its mission starts with educating local and state-wide communities about the importance of financial literacy.
“We believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion,” King said. “We are not excluding any business sector, racial groups, or White, Asian, Latinos business chambers. We know that they have the same challenges. We (CALBCC) are putting on display (an Economic Summit) that we would like to see from other chambers and entities across the state when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. This means everybody to us.”
For more information about the Economic Business Summit, registration, and hotel accommodations, contact Angela Lowe of the California Black Chamber of Commerce at (916) 467-8878 or visit cbcc@calbcc.org.
