By Eba Hamid
NYT Institute

NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is proposing a $100 million plan to promote black entrepreneurship.

The program, aimed at decreasing the number of black businesses dependent on city contracts, would pair established business owners with less experienced black entrepreneurs.

The mentors would then help the smaller companies raise capital and further develop their businesses.

Nagin, who was not available for comment on the program, has yet to design a plan of action for the program.

“The skies are still cloudy for too many of our citizens who want to participate in entrepreneurship, especially in our African-American business community,” Nagin said in his State of the City address May 9.

Since the proposal, some area business people have expressed, while others are concerned about the plan.

“For something like this to work, it’s going to take a city-wide effort to create an opportunity for the community,” said Phala Mire, president of the Louisiana Minority Business Council, an organization that links more than 200 minority-owned businesses to 60 larger companies.

Mire said business owners are skeptical about what opportunities will be offered by larger companies.

Similar minority assistance programs are in place around the country. In 2000, Baltimore created its Minority and Women’s Business Development Office to increase minority and women’s business contributions in Baltimore.

“The program was very successful in raising the level of participation and dramatically increasing the number of contracts given to minority businesses,” said Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesman for Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley.

In 2004, the city helped minority and women businesses win more than $80 million in contracts, up from $40 million in 2000.

Trinette Casimier of the NewCorp Business Assistance Center in New Orleans said her organization tried to implement a similar program in the past with the federal government’s help.

Casimier said the program, Business Linc, failed because larger companies did not want to mentor the minority-owned firm’s clients.

“The larger companies get a lot of (contracts) from out of state and did not want to work with the smaller companies (on those contracts).”

Restaurant owner Edgar Chase, Jr., said the program would encourage the younger community to take advantage of potential business opportunities.

“I think New Orleans is a city that needs to develop young businesses,” said Chase, whose business, Dooky Chase Restaurant, has been in New Orleans for 65 years.

“More young people will join the business community, and the program will build a healthy community in all aspects.”