DETROIT – Local Black businesses are looking for a new organization to gain ground financially.
The Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance held its annual meeting on Monday to discuss the impact it’s already had and ideas to propel these businesses upward in a tough economy.
Longtime Detroit Black business names like Flood’s across from Greektown Casino and The Block, next to the Garden Theatre, are owned by Stephanie Byrd, who is looking to the Black Business Alliance for help.
Charity Dean of Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance runs the alliance and brought members to the Empire Kitchen on Woodward Avenue.
On Monday, she announced the alliance has grown to nearly 800 members as they accessed roughly $9 million in capital funding for business loans, and there was more to crow about. More than $500,000 in funding from the Gilbert Family Foundation over the next three years and another $200,000 over the next two years from JP Morgan Chase Bank.
Yet, its biggest claim to fame came this past year in stopping the largely Black city council’s food ordinance that would have forced restaurants to post quality grades on their front doors scores that would have lasted a year even if the restaurant improved.
A chamber of commerce will lobby for businesses, and the alliance is no different. They are trying to get Mayor Mike Duggan to fund an office of small business affairs to assist them in their business growth efforts.