Program Description
ACRN Black Business Owners and Entrepreneurs’ Support Program is a grass-root community based initiative that provides support services to black owned businesses and emerging entrepreneurs in Saskatchewan and in other Prairie provinces. The program identifies and supports black entrepreneurs in these provinces by providing them mentorship and accesses to resources to enable them develop their innovative ideas and assists them turn those ideas into business opportunities.
Program Goal
Local Stream
- By identifying, organizing and training women for business activities
- By engaging and working with youth entrepreneurs to help them realize their economic potentials.
- Assist those with artistic skills reach for higher aspirations (help produce the next generation Drakes & K’naans).
- Help those with sporting talents reach the next level (keep youth away from street life and help them use their energy to become the next global soccer & basketball stars, or long distance runners).
- By identifying the IT minds in the black community and helping them find the necessary resources to produce the next Canadian technology Apps.
- By helping the foreign trained professionals in the community get their Canadian credentials, and assist them to open their occupation-based businesses – such as accounting and engineering firms.
International Stream
Immigrant Entrepreneurs – ACRN offers information and referrals to prospective immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean countries who are interested in moving to the Prairies to explore entrepreneurial opportunities. We offer welcoming packages for those who visit and provide referrals to business consulting firms and IRCC regulated immigration consultants for information and assistance.
Our goal here is to attract much-needed investments into the Prairies while empowering and strengthening the Black community. All new businesses established here in the Prairies by international entrepreneurs will create much-needed employment opportunities for our young people here in Saskatchewan and elsewhere in the Prairies.
ACRN has had consultative discussions with the provincial government here in Saskatchewan and encouraged them to increase the number of entrepreneurial candidates accepted from the continent of Africa through the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program.
ACRN will further achieve the program goal through the following services:Business incubator
Training and Capacity Development
The focus here is to help any willing individual to raise their game by providing crucial trainings on leadership, financial literacy and business management. Participants from any African/black descent community would initially receive basic business and innovation training (based on "Strategyzer" framework) and the process that goes with it. Once this learning occurs, candidates can submit proposals/ business ideas for acceptance by a "working group" consisting of ACRN management team as well as members of project participants. The idea can be large or tiny.
Once innovative ideas are approved to be viable, ACRN will link the group owning the idea to an ongoing support system of peers, and mentors inside and outside the community to realize their business concept. Participants work the process, with each other, and a "tell it like it is" culture is encouraged. The approach will also use a "project first" philosophy, with participants learning business roles and discipline. Each initiative has a start and end. Some projects will go on to be an actual business. Those that does not succeed will be used for research purposes to enhance our future services and improve the current program.
Business Accelerator - SUPPORT SERVICES
At this level, ACRN will work with new and existing Black-owned businesses to help them find the necessary financial support and other resources to enable them reach the next level.
Historically, Black owned businesses face structural and institutional barriers, which limit their ability to expand and advance their business reach. ACRN will help them receive the necessary training and tools to become competitive in order to sustain their commercial growth. Some of these support programs would take the form of corporate services, like accounting, promotion and branding (e.g. creating online presence for their businesses).
