Millionaire Mastermind Academy, INC

The two-tiered approach  (methods) of the Pioneer Program are business training and mentorship.

Business Training - Training is used to help participants obtain critical information and resources about starting, growing, and managing a successful and sustainable business. Training is delivered both in-person and virtually. The training curriculum includes 12 modules that range from internal motivation and vision, business model development, target audiences and marketing, business operations, implementation and more. 

  Mentorship - The mentorship approach meets the participant's need for business connections, encouragement, and ongoing guidance in business decisions. The mentorship framework is designed to give participants access to well-experienced business experts that can help them put the training into action. Mentors provide “learning support” so that participants don’t just learn intangible information, but are also empowered to feel confident about using the information to grow their business.

The Millionaire Mindset Academy Entrepreneur Accelerator Program is a 15-week program that equips and empowers minority women to combat poverty through entrepreneurship and take back control of their future and financial situations. This program is designed to give you sustainable entrepreneurial success by providing:

• College-level Business Training
• Access to Business Networks
• An Inclusive Business Environment to Learn
• Networking With Fellow Entrepreneurs
• A Safe Space To Ask Questions & Cultivate Knowledge

Offered only 2 times a year, The Entrepreneur Accelerator Program will give you the knowledge and opportunities to start and scale a business, business development, marketing strategy, effective management, and product design.

Now that the American economy is being negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, low-income women are at an even higher risk of extreme poverty. The International Labor Organization estimates that 195 million jobs could be eliminated globally due to the pandemic, with a majority in sectors predominated by women. The 26% gender gap in labor force participation now seems to be widening further and the U.S. Department of Labor reported in April 2020 that women held 60% of the 700k jobs that have been eliminated in the U.S. so far due to COVID-19. Reports on COVID-19 also indicate that most people working in the informal sector as low-wage workers that are vulnerable to unemployment due to COVID-19 are women.

 Low-income women and women of color working in non-essential service industries such as food service, hospitality, and domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to being laid off or exploited for their labor during COVID-19.

The solution is entrepreneurship and creating sustainable small business

As a result of pre and post COVID-19 gender inequalities, there is an increasing need for more women to overcome the pre-existing threat of poverty, combat new challenges presented by recent layoffs, and contribute to the recovery of the economy. The London Business School’s Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has confirmed that entrepreneurship provides jobs, creates new products, advances technology, and increases prospects for those who start, grow, work for, or invest in new ventures. Lives change as entrepreneurs gain experience, confidence, and wealth. 

Due to the fact that the challenge puts emphasis on programs that focus on self-help, we view your foundation as a potential strategic partner to guide us through this stage. Therefore, this alignment of purpose makes this challenge a perfect fit for our organization. Our work includes removing systemic barriers to accessing affordable capital, providing access to mentorship, and facilitating college-level business training for small businesses owned by women from minority groups. Additionally, this challenge aligns with our long-term goal of positively impacting our community, and we hope to learn a lot from your foundation's in-depth human capital and network ties since your track record speaks for itself. We want to create a precedent in the support of businesses owned and controlled by women from minority groups, and we believe that your foundation is a pretty good match for that purpose. Moreover, our needs and circumstances at this given point in time make this challenge even more appealing for our organization. We believe that the level of expertise at your foundation can provide immense value to our organization and validate our operations in the state of Georgia. We also hope that this can be done through a collaborative vetting process that brings together a broad assortment of diverse programs that our organizations can handle. Moreover, the strategic value from your project managers will complement our team and ensure that our programs run smoothly and we fulfill. We therefore hope to form long-lasting relationships with this foundation if selected. 

Target Population

Our target population cuts across women in America, with emphasis on the poor, women of color/ethnic minorities, single mothers and other economically disadvantaged women.

• Women constituted more than 51 percent of the American population and nearly 47 percent of the labor force in 2004.
• Of women in the United States, 14.5 percent were in poverty in 2004. The poverty rate among unemployed women was more than double the rate among women overall, at 31.8 percent. 
• Nearly one in four families, or more than 8.3 million, was headed by a single mother caring for her own children younger than 18. Families headed by single fathers numbered 2.3 million.
• In 2002, women-owned 6.5 million or 28.2 percent of nonfarm U.S. firms. More than 14 percent of these women-owned firms were employers, with 7.1 million workers and $173.7 billion in annual payroll.
• Women-owned firms accounted for 6.5 percent of total employment in U.S. firms in 2002 and 4.2 percent of total receipts.
• Almost 80 percent of women-owned firms had receipts totaling less than $50,000 in both 1997 and 2002. Total receipts for firms in this under-$50,000 group constituted about 6 percent of total women-owned business receipts in both years.

Current Numbers for Firms Owned by Women of Color

As of 2017, minorities accounted for 46% of all women-owned businesses (an estimated 5,400,100, employing 2,105,900 people and generating $361 billion in revenues).

Florida & Georgia

Our accelerator programs offer a whole range of management and business development skills to help minority women in Georgia and Florida grow their respective social and business ventures. These education programs have helped businesses thrive and have allowed our minority women-led entrepreneurs to become the true drivers of future employment. Although state colleges have made significant educational investments, they have not yet delved deeply into the business educational options like real estate education that foster entrepreneurship like we have. We have been able to use our effective data collection and analysis skills to research and develop strategies that have led to the creation of innovative products and services for our programs. Our research data analysis on these businesses led by minorities in these two states has provided a well-studied course of action plan that seeks to improve operations and establish better business acceleration programs.

Millionaire Mastermind Academy offers programs that help to launch small businesses and offers advanced programs that help to sustain and scale. 

The mission of Millionaire Mastermind Academy is to educate and support the growth of women-owned businesses, thereby strengthening their impact on the economy and mitigating the problems presented by poverty.

Our main focus is to ensure that small businesses get access to funding and technology. Moreover, with the right policies, our mission is to enable a more diverse mix of funding options for these businesses. We strive to empower these small businesses by offering management consultancy, legal counseling, marketing, financial and enterprise planning, and business development. We offer these services through training, coaching, and mentoring programs since they are pivotal to women entrepreneurs in minority communities. Our strategic benefit of deploying these programs to launch businesses is the basis for our sustainable competitive advantage.

Through the creation of entrepreneurial initiatives and programs that help address the inequality gap in all forms, but specifically with education and economics, we can help address and solve our disparity because of a couple of factors.

1. Innovation is inherent to all people, however, some communities have more resources to see it come to fruition and commercialize it than others.
2. By exposing and sharing these programs of innovation embedded with social impact on minorities and women of color people we can give them the opportunity to create a better world tomorrow and rectify our missteps today.
3. When we cultivate more minority businesses to be innovators, entrepreneurs, and inventors they can own their intellectual property and capitalize on it. When they can build the wealth they will scale companies and invest back in their communities.
4. When these communities are invested we will see an increase in the quality of education and wealth aggregation as a whole.
5. When the economic wealth of a community increases so will the health of that community, and thus their lifespan increases.
6. When people live longer lives they create more stable and dependable families where knowledge is passed down and that leads to creating generational wealth.
7. Because there is an impending demographic shift in the next twenty-five years in our country, it is imperative that we invest in what are currently considered minority communities because we will depend on them to help lead our country forward.
8. When our communities create economic prosperity our states and country benefit and it reflects not only in our Gross Domestic Product but also in our Social Progress Index and Happiness Index globally.
9. When a country has these high levels of index rankings it has been shown that they have a more stable, thriving, and equitable government and peaceful society.
10. When societies are free to think, explore and experiment without the fear of survival they help humanity advance forward because inherently humans are all creators and innovators.

Our program serves 175 businesses at the moment. 

We will serve over 500 women in the next year through multiple programs within the organization 

In five years, we expect to help more than 100,000 women. 

The greater variance in profitability, survival and growth of these SMEs compared to larger firms accounts for special problems in financing. These SMEs generally tend to be confronted with higher interest rates, as well as credit rationing due to shortage of collateral. The issues that arise in financing differ considerably between existing and these new firms, as well as between those which grow slowly and those that grow rapidly. The expansion of private equity markets, including informal markets, has greatly improved the access to venture capital for start-ups and SMEs, but considerable differences remain among this particular group. 

Transparency is of particular importance to these SMEs, and information technology has great potential to narrow the information gap. It would be of great help to set up a “one-stop-shop system”, where all the necessary information which affects firm strategies and decisions is made available in one place, as exists already in some countries.

We service the underrepresented minority community in Atlanta, Ga, Phoenix, Arizona, and Southeast, Florida

Who influences the organizational strategy: 

Joe Lubeck- Investor, CEO American Landmark ( MMA Board of Directors)

Cameron Robb- Senior VP Consultant at one of the largest utility companies in Phoenix, Arizona. ( MMA Board member) 

Dr. Velma Trayham- founder of Millionaire Mastermind Academy 

Erin Floyd, Regional VP at Truist Bank, also serves on the board of MMA

Women in general face higher income disparities and a higher risk of poverty.

It’s widely known that women in America are more likely to face financial and employment disparities than men. This is seen in that women are less represented in high paying industries, are more likely to be paid less than men even when they hold the same qualifications, and only make up 5% of high level leadership positions at fortune 500 companies. Women are more likely to suffer from a financial crisis, which is confirmed by the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality Project. The project reports that in 2016, 63% of workers being paid the federal minimum wage of only $7.25 were women. The Inequality Project also indicates that women only represent 18.3% of the top 3 national earnings levels, even though they make up almost half of the national workforce. The Women’s Legal Defense and Education fund states that this is because women are more likely to be segregated into low paying jobs in retail, hospitality, and the restaurant industry. 

Additionally, a 2016 report prepared by the Institute on Policy Studies indicates that even when women do work in higher management positions, they still earn an average of $33,000 less than men annually. As can be imagined, this gender pay gap results in women having less wealth overall which is seen in that women typically have less access to health benefits, less substantial savings, fewer retirement funds, and higher levels of debt. The Center for American Progress reports that 21.4 million women were living in poverty in 2018 and The Census Bureau reported that 26% of households led by women lived in poverty in the same year. The average poverty rate for households led by women of color in particular was 31.4% in 2018 according to the Census Bureau.

COVID-19 increased the disparities faced by women living in poverty. 

Now that the American economy is being negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, low income women are at an even higher risk of extreme poverty. The International Labor Organization estimates that 195 million jobs could be eliminated globally due to the pandemic, with a majority in sectors predominated by women. The 26% gender gap in labor force participation now seems to be widening further. The U.S. Department of Labor reported in April 2020 that women held 60% of the 700k jobs that have been eliminated in the U.S. at that time due to COVID-19. Reports on COVID-19 also indicate that most people working in the informal sector as low-wage workers that are vulnerable to unemployment due to COVID-19 are women of minority ethnicities. 

Low income women and women of color working in non-essential service industries such as food service, hospitality and domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to being laid off or exploited for their labor during COVID-19. 

The solution to reducing economic disparities is entrepreneurship and creating sustainable small business.

As a result of pre and post COVID-19 gender inequalities, there is an increasing need for more women to overcome the pre-existing threat of poverty, combat new challenges presented by recent layoffs, and contribute to recovery of the economy. 

The London Business School’s Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has confirmed that entrepreneurship provides jobs, creates new products, advances technology, and increases prospects for those who start, grow, work for, or invest in new ventures. Lives change as entrepreneurs gain experience, confidence, and wealth. Communities grow as residents gain employment in new business and existing businesses thrive due to new spending. Also, the economy benefits when new and improved products come to market.

More women should create their own space and bring about equality and economic advancement through entrepreneurship. A journal published by Business Horizons in April of this year presented research data that confirms higher rates of entrepreneurship leads to lower rates of poverty. The report indicates that 72% of low-income entrepreneurs with small scale businesses increase their income enough to remove themselves from poverty within 5 years.  

The Business Horizons journal confirms the notion that entrepreneurship is a more natural and dignifying alternative to “working for someone else for low wages with no benefits, limited opportunities for advancement, and the possibility of being fired at will”. The ability to create something of value, receive a direct return on labor, be more autonomous in one's future, while contributing to one’s community through creating employment opportunities, is very empowering and wholesome. Entrepreneurship allows individuals to reduce their dependence on government assistance, experience personal development, create opportunities for the community, and leave a potential inheritance for the next generation. 

Low-income women and women of color entrepreneurs are at a disadvantage.

Despite these positive affirmations of entrepreneurship, low-income women of minority ethnicity face many challenges in their pursuit to entrepreneurship. The first being that they are overshadowed by big business ventures and society’s focus on large scale tech startups. Secondly, women of minority ethnicity in low-income areas may not have equal access to education and training mechanisms that allow them to adequately prepare for starting a sustainable successful business. Many low-income and minority women haven't completed a full degree or may need more specialized training that is unaffordable or requires too much of a time commitment. Additionally, they may not have awareness of relevant professional organizations and business networks that provide potential business relationships, business information, mentorship, and marketing opportunities. Lastly, but maybe most importantly, low-income women of minority ethnicity often lack access to beneficial financial resources like loans with low interest rates, good credit, and investment opportunities.  

It is known that only 50% of businesses will survive after 5 years, and these numbers are even bleaker for low-income women and women of color considering the many challenges they face. If low-income women and women of color do not receive access to quality training, positive business environments, supportive business relationships, and sustainable financial resources they are at a high risk of continuing in the cycle of poverty. Not only will they continue in a cycle of poverty, they will be less likely to break the cycle for their families and their communities. Lastly, they won't be given an equal chance to contribute to the redevelopment of a post COVID-19 economy. 

The Millionaire Mastermind Academy (MMA) Pioneer Program meets this need.

Considering these many things, Millionaire Mastermind Academy is launching its “MMA Pioneer Program” that helps low income women and women of minority ethnicities pursue entrepreneurship as a method to overcome the threat of poverty. The MMA Pioneer Program offers in-depth training, access to financial guidance and mentorship to women who have started, or plan to start, businesses that currently have less than 100K in gross revenue. 

Program Population

The MMA Pioneer Program participants are women above the age of 18 that self-identify as low-income and self-identify as African American. In the 2015 State of Women Owned Business Report, American Express Open reported that Black women were the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs in the nation. As a reflection of this, participants from all across the United States can enroll in the Pioneer Program virtually and attend annual summits in Atlanta, Georgia where Millionaire Mastermind Academy is headquartered. While the majority of participants are typically African American, other ethnicities are welcomed in the program if they enroll as well. The target population may have already started, or intend to start, a small business that currently has less than 100K in revenue. 

Program Goals

The goal of Millionaire Mastermind Academy’s Pioneer Program is to equip and empower low-income women and women of color to combat poverty through entrepreneurship. The program is designed to prepare women for sustainable entrepreneurial success by providing college level business training, access to business networks, and an inclusive business environment. When women participate in The MMA Pioneer Program, they are empowered to believe in themselves, see their own entrepreneurial potential, and are provided with business resources, tools, and networks to succeed. The MMA Pioneer Program encourages participants to use entrepreneurship to end individual poverty in the short term, and contribute to the progress of their families and communities, and now, contribute to the recovery of the post COVID-19 economy in the long run.  

Program Approach (method)

Over the past 3 years, the Millionaire Mastermind networking events have brought together over 5,000 women to share their collective wisdom to start and scale successful women owned businesses. Information gathered from a survey of women who participated in these events provide insight into the knowledge, skills, opportunities and needs of Black women owned businesses. Over 97% of participants were African American women, 37% were between the ages of 40 and 49, 77.5% were business owners and 62.5% have been in business 3 years or less. When asked “what are your top 3 needs as a business?”, 82.5% selected Marketing and Promotion, 47.5% selected Scaling a Business, 32.5% selected Starting or Developing a Business, and 32.5% selected Leading a Successful Team. When asked about their knowledge of the benefits of being a SBA certified Women Owned Business (WOSB), only 1 respondent was a WOSB and only 15% of respondents were aware of the benefits. This data has informed the development of program methods, and is used to make improvements to the program implementation. 

The three-tiered approach (methods) of the Pioneer Program are business training, mentorship, and promotion. 

Business Training - Training is used to help participants obtain critical information and resources about starting, growing, and managing a successful and sustainable business. Training is delivered both in person and virtually. The training curriculum includes 12 modules that range from internal motivation and vision, business model development, target audiences and marketing, business operations, implementation and more. Training is also the key to providing the educational resources needed to access and utilize capital that will strengthen each participant’s business structure. 

Mentorship - The mentorship approach meets the participants need for business connections, encouragement, and ongoing guidance in business decisions. The mentorship framework is designed to give participants access to well experienced business experts that will help them put the training into action. Mentors provide “learning support” so that participants don’t just learn intangible information but are also empowered to feel confident about using the information to grow their business. In addition to direct mentor-participant assignments, the mentorship model is established through in person gatherings, social networks, “business bootcamps”, and recognition luncheons. 

Promotion - The Millionaire Mindset is a televised component of the MMA Pioneer Program. It is designed to promote and empower Black women to overcome the challenges of economic instability through mentorship and entrepreneurship. The televised show exists to educate and support the growth of women owned businesses, use entrepreneurship to combat the threat of poverty, and improve local community economies. 

Millionaire Mastermind Academy recognizes that there are a wide range of business training and mentorship alternatives available. However, the Pioneer Program is different from those that already exist because it is tailored to address the specific obstacles and challenges of low-income minority women. The material and interactions are presented in a way that is relevant, relatable, and empowering as opposed to high-level instruction that is more tailored to mainstream “big business” ventures.

We have built a very credible brand and trust around the nation by being authentic and allowing our impact to speak for itself. We are partnered with one of the country's fastest-growing marketing firms named Thinkzilla Consulting. We have a database of over 250,000 small businesses and media connections that span nationally. We are also very connected to our community and organizations that help us to push our mission forward. 

The primary objective of the Pioneer Program is to help low-income women of color create and/or grow a successful and sustainable small business.

Success Metric for Primary Goal or Objective:

The success of the Pioneer Program is measured by the rate of growth that occurs in participants’ businesses as a result of completing the program.  For this reason, the program will be considered successful if 75% of participants (67 women) achieve 50% of the milestones indicated in their small business plan within one year of completing the program. Successful completion of the program will result in participants developing sustainable business models, increasing financial capital, and leveraging positive business connections to bring growth to their small businesses.

Direct Beneficiary Group

Women that self-identify as low income, and African American or other minority ethnicities

Overall, the Pioneer Program will empower low income women of minority ethnicities to complete quality business training and gain the critical knowledge needed to be successful entrepreneurs. As a result of the program, participants will gain 1 mentor, a comprehensive business plan, an assessment of their business structure, and a minimum of 3 business connections within 6 months. On an individual level, the objective is business growth that leads to low income women of minority ethnicity increasing their earning potential, obtaining financial independence and security, combating poverty, and creating a pathway to lasting wealth for themselves and their families.]

Joe Lubeck, CEO of American Landmark; Judith Ashworth, Senior Vice President Administration, and Human Resources, Blaylock Van; Cameron Robb, Senior Economic Development Consultant, APS; Tye Hayes, former Chief Technology Officer, City of Atlanta and CEO of N-OVATE; Erin Floyd, Vice President and Area Leader at Truist/Atlanta; and Toshia and Jacques Posey, CEOs of 1st Class Real Estate, Cornerstone Group.

We are a rare organization that connects with corporations dedicated to social responsibility by fostering opportunities for minority women to become business owners. This creates a more inclusive environment that embraces diversity and fosters opportunities for women to create a promising future for themselves, their families, and future generations of women. 

We view the Truist Foundation as a potential strategic partner due to the fact that they support a variety of initiatives and programs related to what we do. Some of them include: entrepreneurship training and social/business networking opportunities for minority female-owned businesses. Truist can be a key partner when it comes to capital campaign support and funding for programs advocating on behalf of businesses owned by women from minority groups. We believe that we can form long-lasting relationships with your foundation since we hope to learn a lot from their in-depth human capital and network ties since this facility’s track record speaks for itself. An in-depth assessment of our funding and strategic needs has also identified the Truist Foundation as a suitable fit, which is why we are requesting your involvement in our project. Moreover, our needs and circumstances at this given point in time make this fund a perfect fit for our programs. We believe that the level of expertise at Truist can provide immense value to our organization and validate our operations in the state of Georgia. We hope that this can be done through a collaborative vetting process that brings together a broad assortment of diverse programs that our organizations can handle. Moreover, the strategic value from your project managers will complement our team and ensure that our programs run smoothly and we fulfill our mission successfully.

Millionaire Mastermind Academy is a rapidly growing, Atlanta-based organization providing an array of educational and investment services to aspiring minority female entrepreneurs.

MMA has already mentored more than 5,000 minority women clients and it has successfully-launched 37 businesses. It has also been able to award $10,000 in scholarships and $25,000 in seed funding.

Our goal is to make use of cross-sector partnerships to tackle economic inequalities in minority groups through capacity building. We see this partnership with Truist as an opportunity for the development of knowledge, skills, commitment, structures, systems, and leadership to enable effective programs that benefit all stakeholders. First, we hope to empower our cohorts by enhancing their individual knowledge and skills. Second, we seek your partnership to stimulate our organizational level by expanding our support and infrastructure so as to continue impacting the lives of aspiring minority female entrepreneurs. Third, we hope to impact the level of partnerships by building and/or strengthening partnerships and cohesiveness among the businesses owned by women from financial groups.

We would like to partner with venture capital funds like; The Women's VC Fund; The Backstage Capital Opportunity Fund; The Founders First Capital Fund; or The Harlem Capital Fund. 

So as to raise capital to invest in new business projects for cohorts that we have trained and seen great potential in the business ventures. These VC funds act as agents between minority female entrepreneurs, who face search costs in locating funding, and uninformed institutional and individual investors. While venture capital comprises a relatively small percentage of capital market activities in Atlanta, it can provide an important source of funding for these amazing small businesses and can offer the potential for high returns for investors. VC fund managers from these VC funds, unlike many other equity market participants, take active roles within their portfolio firms. In addition to the deal’s origination, screening, evaluation, and structuring, we will be responsible for monitoring the venture’s post-investment activities on behalf of the investors in their managed funds. The venture capitalist will take some form of non-executive managerial position within the portfolio company and guide it to success.