The Greater Charleston Business Alliance is the outgrowth of the Minority Business Partnership established in 2010.  The Partnership was the result of a comprehensive study on the state of minority business in the tri-county region commissioned by the BCD Council of Governments and conducted by the Institute of Entrepreneurial Thinking.  The study determined that African American businesses fared worse than that of the majority and even other ethnic minority businesses. African American firms grew at a slightly lower rate than similar firms nationally, and lagged greatly behind the growth rate of other minority groups in the B-C-D Region.  In fact, the study showed there was significant disparity in economic inclusion of businesses owned by people of color, particularly African American owned businesses.  In addition to these troubling trends, the BCD region has a very low demand for inclusion.  While there are substantial local buyers, there had been little effort geared toward including minority businesses in major buying.  Most of the inclusion efforts have come from the public sector with limited private sector involvement.  These observations extended to women of color as well. The Partnership was established to address this troubling trend. 

 

In 2013, members of the Partnership decided to expand their reach and include small, disadvantaged, and women business owners to their coterie.  As it stood, the current format kept the organization separated and isolated from the larger business community. The mission was also expanded to address those issues that impact the entire business community and that have significant bearing on many other community concerns, like health and education.  The Partnership, while successful, recognized its limitations and began a more inclusive approach to advancing the status of minority owned businesses within the larger business community.

 

As a result, the MBP was transitioned into Greater Charleston Business Alliance.  Not only would the focus remain on accelerating the growth of sizable minority businesses located in the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Region, it would continue to make critical connections between major buying firms in the region and targeted minority firms.  However, the GCBA would now include small, disadvantaged, and female business owners and identify community and faith based initiatives that would enhance the mission.  A major objective of the partnership is to identify those public and private organizations with solid inclusion approaches and work with them and other organizations to duplicate these efforts.

 

Toward this end, the GCBA has been rebranded and re-launched to address the myriad of business issues that prevent inclusion but also those business issues that have the greatest impact on the growth and success of local communities.  Every resource that can be brought to bear will be identified and utilized to support GCBA goals and objectives.  The Alliance has built a strong support infrastructure, created connections and cultivated relationships, and begun building regional inclusion capacity.  Its Board of Directors comes from a myriad of private and public sector leaders committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in all its business practices.  The GCBA will be the region’s premier organization to build bridges and promote inclusion to ensure every small, minority, disadvantaged, and female owned business has access to business opportunities.