Florida Prosperity Partnership, Inc.

FPP Coalition is going to launch The Financial JustUs Movement (FJM), an action-based advocacy campaign that connects partners across the world into motivated efforts to help generate equity for BIPOC- and women-led small businesses. FJM will connect any business or independent entrepreneur, of any background, education level, or capacity, to the necessary knowledge and resources to succeed. 

FPP, in partnership with the 3900+ organizations and individuals who make up the Coalition, will not only use education models, internship opportunities, connections, and strategic resources to further the capability of community businesses. FPP will also assist in advising and implementing a new technological platform that will be available at no-cost to all individuals and organizations worldwide, aimed at bridging the gap in technical and financial equity by enabling any user to simply create a profile, and from that profile a fully-functional, complex website is made public fitting the needs of partner businesses. 

The portal will be partnered with organizational support for any other needs expressed by organizations, including no-cost: access to remote interns, strategic plan advisement, technical support with a 2-hour response window, resource and partnership connections, financial guidance, tax preparation services for both the businesses and all employees, virtual and live event technology support, and more. 

FJM will provide a solution that allows any human, of any education level, technical understanding, and any identity, to not only create and maintain a well-developed web portal that fits their needs, but to create and maintain an active voice and ability to generate impact.

FJM aims to solve the gap in digital and financial equity that has rapidly developed, specifically for small businesses over the course of the Pandemic. Many BIPOC and women face increased obstacles entering the field of technology. These systemic barriers have created an environment where, while there is the capability for success exists for many BIPOC and women entrepreneurs, the ability to expand businesses to virtual fronts is stunted. While there are active efforts to engage BIPOC and women into technical education, there is still a gap for those who do not: want to pursue technical education, have the capacity to hire someone who has a technical education, or understand the strategic advantage in implementing technical efforts into daily business.

In 2021, FPP was able to 'pilot' this program aimed at elevating the technical impact of partners lacking the ability, in partnership with the other strategic, staffing, resource, and other capacity-building efforts. This pilot involving FPP Coalition members generated impact from 289,000 households, to over 2 Million households worldwide. 

There are hundreds of thousands of small businesses in the US alone run by BIPOC and women, who are in need of capacity-building support for technical and financial capability. According to research by TopDesign Firm, one in four small businesses do not have a website, and one in 3 small businesses do not have the level of virtual engagement they desire to. FJM would be revolutionary to small businesses worldwide, specifically those run by BIPOC and women who lack technical expertise. 

The problem FJM aims to address is assisting BIPOC- and women- led small businesses in overcoming modern obstacles to expanding their capacity as organizations. 

FPP has found the largest gap that exists for these organizations, found by having conversations with the organizations directly, is the capability to offer virtual engagement. This is heightened due to the recent COVID-19 Pandemic, and a systemic history of barriers to entry in the technical field for BIPOC and women. 

FPP aims to address this by creating a solution that will provide not only the technical needs for small businesses to generate a virtual impact, but also elevate the capacity of these organizations outright by completely integrating this technical support with strategic advisement, partnership making, tax preparation services, event assistance, and more. 

In doing this, BIPOC- and women- led small businesses will have the capacity to sustain their efforts in a time of rapid shifting to virtual engagement, while also expanding their ability to provide services to their communities, on their terms, with the support of not only FPP but any organization that joins the Financial JustUs Movement. 

This solution serves BIPOC- and women- led small businesses and entrepreneurs, and the communities in which their products/services impact. 

BIPOC- and women-led small businesses are currently underserved in the area of technical development support to further strategic impact. This gap has expanded during the recent COVID-19 Pandemic, as most businesses in some capacity had to shift to a level of virtual engagement in order to be sustainable. 

FPP has spent the last year meeting with organizations to see what specific needs they had, and realized that there was no solution that exists yet to get those who do not have the financial or technical capacity to, engaging virtually. FPP aims to change this. 

Throughout every step of planning, FPP has communicated efforts, ideas, and potential solutions with these organizations. FPP has piloted efforts with partnered BIPOC- and women- led small businesses serving low- to moderate- income households across Florida to see how much change in impact can be generated, and the results are revolutionary. 

FPP has been working to pilot the implementation throughout 2021 of the strategic support of this project in Florida. In these efforts, FPP has also expanded impact, not necessarily through decisive measures to do so, to all 50 states in the US. The only aspect of the project not fully developed and implemented in this footprint is the full capacity of the technical support this project aims to offer.

FPP's mission is to Elevate Financial Capability for All! FPP does this by supporting small businesses, both for-profit and non-profit, in developing their capacity and capability as needed to best serve their community. In doing so, FPP is able to help sustain small businesses across the nation and world in generating an impact and making their products and services accessible and inclusive to all. 

FPP will connect with Coalition partners and members who are willing to join the FJM to see what they have, and what they need, as organizations. FPP will connect with new BIPOC- and women- led organizations to see as well what they have, and what they need.

FPP will meet with partners developing workshops, resources, events, and technological platforms that are available at no-cost to create a site that gathers all of these necessary pieces to make them public to any small business who needs it.

FPP will also offer full time technical support, event assistance, Schedule-C and individual tax preparation services, strategic advisement, partnership connections, and more directly to any small businesses who reach out via the outreach forms available on this site.

FPP will then connect and output small business development and impact across the nation, and world, by helping any small business, specifically BIPOC- and women-led small businesses, expand their capacity, and resulting impact across communities. 

The final outcome will be increased impact, technical capacity, and overall capability as organizations for BIPOC- and women-led small businesses worldwide. 

FPP currently serves around 3000 small businesses annually. In one year, FPP aims to use this solution to impact 50,000 small businesses through automation and technical platform development. In five years, FPP hopes to bring technical equity to, at minimum, all US-based small businesses that lack technical capacity, an approximate 7.9 million organizations. 

The community FPP aims to impact is any BIPOC- or women- led small businesses, serving to make any level of change with either a product or a service, in any field. The key stakeholders in the community are the entrepreneurs who are working to overcoming the obstacles to small business success that exist in the modern day. As well, those larger organizations, local government offices, and other community members who help to fund, and further connect, small business, both currently and once the FJM begins, would be considered major stakeholders.

FJM is designed to motivate major community stakeholders who have the power to influence small businesses in their regions. FPP will be able to provide the direct technical access, website building, technical support, event support, strategic advisement and tax preparation to any organization. However, FPP recognizes that each community may have specific needs, which is where the commitments of other organizations comes in.

FPP will engage regional stakeholders and small businesses through Regional Roundtables, workshops, and events aimed at their specific needs, and bringing together major players in each community. All services in this solution are fully customizable, to ensure that the needs expressed in any one community can be met and scaled to the level needed.

FPP Coalition has a history of building trust through un-funded partnerships towards mutual community advancement. FPP meets regularly through Community Roundtables and other regional events with other organizations to see what their needs are, and who is making strides to meet them. FPP takes time to listen to all community organizations, regardless of size or duration of existence, to make sure they're getting what they need to succeed. FPP does all of this without seeking funding or a return from the partnered organizations and small businesses, as the impact it generates is what furthers FPP's mission as a non-profit entity. 

In doing this, FPP has, and will continue to, build trust with organizations of all sizes across all regions. FPP answers to the needs of communities without asking for a return, and it has allowed organizations to approach FPP with the more unspoken needs of communities. 

FPP aims by next year to have launched and begun connecting BIPOC- and women- led small businesses with the resources available through the Financial JustUs Movement. This launch will bring organizations into the conversation behind community need for technical capacity and regional partnership, and begin the stepping stones into bringing at least the small business population of Florida into the movement. FPP will do this through marketing and partnership conversations continuously over the next year to ensure this is met.

Five years from now, through continuous marketing, community partnerships, escalated events, and more, FPP aims to bring every small business in need of a virtual presence into a space of desired impact. FPP will scale all efforts across US states, and neighboring countries, until the entire world has the capacity to develop websites for their efforts with no prior technical education necessary. 

FPP Coalition has served for over 14 years in expanding the capacity and capability of organizations of all sizes, across all regions. FPP's team is made up of those willing to make connections and serve to the interest of the partner. 

FPP's structure, as a non-profit, also means any impact generated by partner organizations in efforts such as this reflect a direct impact of the efforts of FPP. This means FPP is willing to do many services for no-cost that would otherwise reflect a cost when partnering with other organizations of similar structure and services.

FPP has made specific efforts to advance technologically in comparison to other organizations of similar style. This has allowed FPP to offer services unavailable through any other nonprofits of the same or similar size. This has allowed FPP to grow significantly in impact and partnerships during COVID where other organizations have been facing barriers to sustainability and expansion.

Truist and MIT have the connections, funding, and vision to bring equity to BIPOC- and women- led organizations worldwide that FPP can use to catalyze and scale the FJM in a way otherwise not possible. 

FPP has been able to serve across 50 states and 6 continents up until now, but this solution will require a level of partnership and trust from all potential stakeholders that FPP has not yet experienced in every region this solution aims to impact. FPP needs to expand upon partnerships in select regions in order to generate the necessary impact, so connections and fiscal support to broaden connections is where FPP needs assistance in achieving these goals.

FPP is willing to partner with any BIPOC- or women- led small business, or any major community stakeholder who is able to help support or further the impact of BIPOC- or women- led small businesses. FPP is willing to partner with them to further the offerings of strategic support, event support, technical support, and more.