Impact over Identity: Crafting Rigorous Social Entrepreneurship Policy in, for, and by Communities of Struggle

This interactive workshop will provide historical context for the 60-year era of “minority business” development policy that was codified under the Nixon administration to cherry-pick Black citizens able and willing to contract with the federal government. Since 1969, these supplier diversity programs have focused on assisting well-placed, minoritized business owners with products or services that government agencies seek to procure. However, these programs never focused on outcomes related to improving the collective well-being of minoritized communities themselves. The goal of this session is to raise the literacy of participants as it relates to business formation, social entrepreneurship and racial equity.