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any organizations and groups that have primarily focused on building and strengthening communities and promoting civil rights
through employment have found themselves challenged
to give more thought to their economic development
activities. Faced with shrinking job opportunities in Corporate America, many of their constituents have turned
to entrepreneurship, and, in response, these organizations
have redefine what services they provide for their membership.
Elias Aseged, the business diversity chairman at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE),
explains the evolution, “Oftentimes,
when someone says ‘work’, it ’s
interpreted as working for a large,
Fortune 500 organization.” While
that is still true for many of NSBE’s
members, there is a noticeable shift
toward entrepreneurship. “We have
seen a significant portion of our
Aseged
NSBE Professional Members transition from the corporate world to their own endeavors.
The economic crisis has made this transition more appealing,” he says.
The executive director at the National Association for
Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB), Noel
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May/June 2013
MBE
Poyo, has noticed a similar change, and also suggests
that the shift in the Hispanic population toward business
ownership may have been hastened by the recession. “The
data has borne out that if recession equals unemployment,
unemployment oftentimes equals starting a business.”
Partly in response to the scarcity of entrepreneurial
and business support resources in minority communities
(“Business centers have been on college campuses, not in
Latino communities,” Poyo asserts.), NALCAB was created
to focus on asset development:
real estate, business ownership,
family balance sheets—building
family wealth.
“We work with a lot of groups
that began as immigrant rights
groups. The issues used to be
ESL and immigrant legal services. Now it is business own- Poyo
ership—financial education, small business development
services. Immigrants want to figure out the regulatory
environment.”
As a result, there is a trend toward consolidation of