Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership

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550 Broad Street 15th Floor Newark, NJ 07102
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Women of Color Connecting — The WOCCON initiative focuses on harnessing the power of social capital and relationships through its “Success Circle” approach. A Success Circle is comprised of professional service providers who volunteer their own expertise and commit to using their collective expertise and social capital to provide support to a Women of Color entrepreneur, who is selected through a competitive process. Applicants for this program have demonstrated significant traction, and have the potential to deliver significant financial benefit to the founder. The goal is to help more Women of Color entrepreneurs get on the grow-scale-exit trajectory.

The Making of Black Angels — This campaign seeks to drive greater diversity and inclusion within the angel investing sector. Our work focuses on increasing awareness in the Black community about angel investing as an asset class, and the role that angel capital plays in the capital access continuum. Our goal is also to get more Black accredited investors to join angel investor groups to help open doors to those groups for black entrepreneurs.

We also provide strategic advisory and implementation support to Women of Color entrepreneurs who have the potential to grow, scale, and exit.

Mission

Our mission is to support economic development through entrepreneurship. We help entrepreneurs from underserved communities gain access to the knowledge, networks, and capital they need to succeed in business. While we provide direct services — mostly focused on one-on-one mentoring — we are experts in creating and implementing small business support programming for larger agency clients focused on broad economic and community development objectives.

Storytelling

Tiasia O’Brien, CEO, Seam Social Labs
Being a part of the Success Circles program has truly impacted our early-stage startup. After our first pitch, we connected with the Managing Director of Golden Seeds who gave us trans-formative, valuable guidance on pitching, refining our business model, and learning investor lingo. In addition, we connected with HR and Sales Advisors who came in and supported our team in scaling and making sure our due diligence was prepped for a successful future. Being in this program has led to tremendous growth and development for our company

Jihan Thompson, CEO, Swivel Beauty
Success Circles has been absolutely phenomenal. The group of mentors IFEL assembled for Swivel, from branding experts to fundraising pros and PR gurus have been transformational for our business. When you're working with a small budget, one of the biggest hurdles startups can face is access to the right advisors to help you grow in critical areas. Success Circles has filled that gap for us. We feel honored to be part of this program and can already see the impact it's having on our business.

Our Impact (2022)

201 individuals served

97 training programs or workshops offered

7 funding partners

Use the icons to explore our impact metrics.

Pipeline

Expanding the number of entrepreneurs within a specific field or segment (i.e. training and coaching to create more entrepreneurs among high schoolers, more entrepreneurs in the tech industry, more entrepreneurs among women).

Removal of Barriers

Providing support to entrepreneurs to empower them and become more educated business owners (i.e. general business support, training in accessing procurement).

  • 201 Total number of individuals served

  • 18 Total number of new businesses started

  • 400 Total number of individual (1:1) technical assistance sessions conducted

  • 1,000 Total number of hours spent providing technical assistance

Type of Organization

  • Community Economic Development Organization
  • Nonprofit Organization

Locations Served

  • Newark, New Jersey

Key Programs and Initiatives

  • Women of Color Connecting (WOCCON)
  • The Making of Black Angels

Types of Offerings

  • Financing
  • Entrepreneurial Training
  • Workshops
  • Matchmaking/networking opportunities
  • 1 to 1 business advising
  • Mentoring/coaching
  • Cohort Training Programs
  • Advisory/Consulting Services

Program Delivery

  • Hybrid (in person/virtual)

Members of the Black Community Served

  • Immigrants
  • Women
  • Men aged 21–65

Locations of Members of the Black Community Served

  • Low-income areas
  • Low to moderate income areas
  • Suburban areas
  • Urban areas

Targeted Entrepreneur Segments

  • Business Services
  • Construction
  • Manufacturing
  • Wholesale & Retail Trade
  • Accommodation & Food Services
  • Transportation & Logistics
  • Media & Publishing
  • Health Care & Social Services
  • Technology & Software Development

Business Stage

  • Stay Up : a business that has determined its market fit, but its product/service has not been validated nor has it achieved sustainability.

  • Scale Up : a business that already validated its product in a market and has proven sustainable.

Cost of Programs

  • Free
  • $201-$300
  • $301-$400
  • $501 or more