The Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation

What is the name of your organization?

The Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation

Is your organization registered as 501(c)(3) status with the IRS?

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

• Assisting with access to capital, capital campaigns, and/or financial education and information
• Supporting and fostering growth to scale through comprehensive and relevant technical support assistance such as legal aid, fiscal management for sustainability, marketing, and procurement

What is the name of your solution?

The Center for Culinary Enterprises: Recipe for a Business

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

The Center for Culinary Enterprises provides businesses with the “recipe” for skill building, scaling, and sustained growth by providing expert business advisory services.

What is your solution?

In 2012, TEC-CDC established the Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises (CCE) with the primary purposes of decreasing the racial wealth gap for business owners of color and creating greater economic opportunities for culinary businesses by strengthening the local food ecosystem. TEC-CDC owns and operates the CCE, a 13,000+ sq. ft., LEED-silver certified culinary business incubator that accelerates the growth of minority-owned food businesses. This state-of-the-art facility offers four commercial kitchen spaces, specialized food production equipment, generous workspace, storage, and multi-media presentation/event space. The CCE provides the following services and support:

1. Certification: We assist businesses with obtaining certification as Minority, Women, and/or Disabled Business Enterprise (M/W/DSBE) and ServSafe certification.
2. Upskilling: Businesses receive expert consultation on financial planning, budgeting, marketing, inventory management, feasibility studies, and product testing.
3. Specialty workshops: Monthly guest speaker series provide a forum for culinary industry professionals to speak about trends and current food business topics.
4. Foodie Forums: These events introduce local West Philadelphia residents to the benefits and requirements of a career in the culinary industry, promoted through our website, mailing list, print collateral, and networks of partners such as the Walnut Hill Community Association. Contracting Networks: The CCE connects small businesses with contract opportunities through its procurement connections to West Philadelphia Institutions (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania). Food products made at the CCE have been purchased for resale by major Philadelphia institutions such as CHOP, the University of Pennsylvania, and Sodexo. 

What specific problem are you solving?

There is an established local food ecosystem in West Philadelphia that provides meaningful living wage jobs and economic opportunities for minority low-income residents and businesses. TEC-CDC capitalized on this local asset and created the CCE to assist the growth of minority culinary enterprises and help them overcome 3 main challenges:

1. Costly commercial kitchen space: by sharing a kitchen, businesses do not bear the high cost of the space and benefit from economies of scale.
2. Incomplete Business Skills: the CCE provides an opportunity to develop advanced business and culinary skills and access markets and growth capital.
3. Collaboration: the shared space enables entrepreneurs to collaborate in joint ventures and purchase from one another.

In 2021, TEC-CDC surveyed businesses on local commercial corridors who reported a 40-70% loss in revenue because of COVID-19 and civil unrest. Minority culinary businesses (MBEs) were severely impacted by the pandemic; many did not benefit from bailout programs such as The Philadelphia COVID-19 Restaurant and Gym Relief Program or the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund due to small size or because they were not a bricks and mortar business.

COVID-19 also interfered with CCE clients benefitting from the economies of scale fostered by sharing space, learning together, and collaborating with one another. These businesses produce healthy food (pushing back against the excess of neighborhood fast food) and catering to diverse tastes.

The CCE builds on the entrepreneurial assets of culinary MBEs in Greater Philadelphia to accelerate growth and greater economic inclusion.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

The Center for Culinary Enterprises addresses a solvable problem by providing access to capital and networks that unlock new markets enabling minority, culinary enterprises (MBEs) to compete in the regional economy in a meaningful way. TEC-CDC’s solution fully aligns with SOLVE’s challenge in the following ways:

• Solvable: TEC-CDC helps MBEs achieve their dreams and achieve social impact through strategic business development that helps them grow and scale. Since opening in 2012, the Center for Culinary Enterprises (CCE) has created over 400 jobs and since 2016, over $250,000 in client contracts annually. Our affiliate The Enterprise Center Capital Corporation has connected culinary clients to $146,000 in capital.
• Partnerships: The CCE has extensive procurement networks and access to capital connections that benefit the Center’s clients. Partnerships open economic opportunities that were previously unobtainable to culinary entrepreneurs because they could not access these opportunities circulated through close networks. TEC-CDC's collaborations with anchor institution partners CHOP, Drexel University, Bon Appetit, and Sodexo assist MBEs with strategic food sourcing and establishing regional vendor relationships. 
• Innovation: The CCE leverages economies of scale to group multiple culinary businesses under one roof, eliminating the financial outlay for maintaining a “bricks and mortar” business.
• Human-centered solutions: Like the SOLVE challenge, TEC-CDC is committed to anti-racism, diversity, and inclusion, and recognizes that it is critical to build on the assets of an underserved community. The CCE empowers minority culinary entrepreneurs to compete in the regional economy by increasing their business capacity, financial acumen, and skills. 

Who does your solution serve, including demographics, and how does the solution impact their lives?

TEC-CDC’s revitalization activities serve start-ups and new entrepreneurs (some starting businesses out of their homes) who really benefit from the support and skill building activities and resources provided through the CCE. Business clients are 75% low- and moderate-income people from a racially and culturally diverse population of African American, Caucasian, Asian-American, Caribbean, and West African immigrant residents. The community we serve has been negatively impacted by high unemployment, low educational attainment, and persistent poverty, and more recently, COVID-19 and civil unrest. 30% of residents live below the federal poverty level versus 25.3% citywide. The neighborhood also has a very-low median household income of $26,901.

Our community and economic development work focuses on stimulating investment, creating job opportunities for low-income residents, and improving the capacity of minority small businesses through skill development, financial literacy, and access to new markets and resources. Our stakeholders come from all walks of life ranging from culinary entrepreneurs to commuters, minority, small business owners to neighborhood leaders. Through inclusive practices, including hiring in the community, upskilling, and training of residents, TEC-CDC has built a bridge to stakeholders resulting in increased diversity of income, race, and ethnicity in our organization.

To understand the community’s needs and priorities, TEC-CDC conducts surveys, the earliest beginning in 2007 and most recently in 2021. The solicitation of diverse perspectives has been beneficial when advising on economic development activities. TEC-CDC also directly hires community members who have experienced poverty, helping to build their professional capacities. We also have a strong supplier diversity policy.

The people we serve have benefitted from the transformation of public spaces, buildings, and businesses and from renewed pride of place through the positive changes that signal a rebounding community. 

Is the solution already being implemented in at least one of the Truist Foundation’s target geographies: North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Texas, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Delaware?

Yes

If your solution is already being implemented, list which of the above US state(s) you currently operate and include those states not listed

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises (CCE) is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and services small, minority culinary enterprises in the Greater Philadelphia region (which includes Camden, NJ, and Wilmington Delaware).

Is your organization’s mission to help launch small businesses and/or to sustain small businesses?

The Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation's mission is to catalyze benefits for businesses and residents that spark community revitalization. We serve start-ups and sustain small businesses. TEC-CDC provides a continuum of business advisory services to meet our clients where they are. TEC-CDC also supports the mission of its parent organization, The Enterprise Center, a business accelerator over 30 years old and our affiliate, a community development financial institution that provides small business loans that range from $50,000 to $500,000.

What is your theory of change?

TEC-CDC’s work is part of an ongoing larger strategy to anchor wealth in disadvantaged communities and create pathways out of poverty; economic justice is key to dismantling racism. There is a significant amount of literature about minority enterprises (MBE) lack of inclusion in regional economies due to lack of capital for business growth, connections for business opportunities, and contracts to build past performance.

TEC-CDC’s theory of change synthesizes proven, community and economic development best practices for a simple, but powerful solution. Our combination of professional business advisory services, access to growth capital and business and community networks position businesses that are poised for growth but need more grounding in business practices and networks to compete and succeed.

1. TEC-CDC’s solution builds on an existing procurement initiative that actively recruits and develops the capacity of minority enterprises (MBEs).
2. TEC-CDC is connected to a broad coalition of businesses, banks, and mentors because we know we can’t do the work alone. Together, we remove the barriers that stymie MBEs:  limited capacity, access to financing, or lack or professional resources.
3. Lastly, MBEs shut out of traditional financing now have access to non-predatory growth capital through our affiliate CDFI and lending partners.

[1] http://economyleague.org/providing-insight/regional-direction/2018/04/24/anchor-procurement-initiative-a-cross-sector-approach-to-business-growth-and-job-creation#:~:text=The%20Anchor%20Procurement%20Initiative%20(API,local%20businesses%20and%20create%20jobs

[2] Ross Baird, Bruce Katz, Jihae Lee And Daniel Palmer. “Towards A New System of Community Wealth”, Drexel University Nowak Metro Finance Lab, 2019, URL: https://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/nowaklab/Drexel_NMFL_CommunityWealth_Final.ashx?la=en

Our solution's stage of development:

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