Are you an experimenting or emerging creative business looking to achieve greater financial resilience and increased confidence operating a growing business?
Could you benefit from one-on-one support from an experienced creative entrepreneur and peer insights to realize your creative business goals?
Starting and growing a creative business is difficult. It is even tougher for Black creatives encountering and navigating systemic and persistent barriers to opportunity. In addition, Pittsburgh offers a diverse range of small business development programs and resources that can really move the needle for Black creatives empowered to fully participate. From Handmade Arcade to Ascender, the helpful content and capacity building is out there. But the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and consequences of systemic racism often keep Black creatives from reaching and maximizing these opportunities.
Pursuing creative business growth in challenging social and economic conditions requires a committed team approach. To meet the need, ORIGINS will be providing up to 10 Black creatives access to an intensive, enduring, and transformative business coaching program.
The ORIGINS Business Coaching Program unfolds over nine months and will be led by Nisha Blackwell, owner of Knotzland, nationally renowned creative entrepreneur, and Program Coordinator for ORIGINS. Also leading the program is Roderick Ramsey MBA, owner of Ocular Arcade and the current ORIGINS Cohort leader. Together, these innovative leaders will work with business coaching participants to craft, pursue, and realize meaningful business pathways and realize strategies for empowered leadership both in business and in the community. The program serves to get creative business owners closer to realizing creative fulfillment, financial success, and social impact. Over the course of nine months, ORIGINS Business Coaching Program Participants will take the following actions.
- Use the Creative Business Ladder (CBL) survey to measure progress and assess strengths and weaknesses
- Consult one-on-one with an ORIGINS Business Coach to identify areas of opportunity and accomplish the goals established at the beginning of the program
- Work in peer groups with likeminded creative entrepreneurs ready to share their lessons learned and best practices
- Access free business assistance services from local professionals in finance, legal, marketing, and more
- Increase independent business problem-solving skills
- Build leadership confidence through repeatedly speaking about your business in different settings and culminating in a final pitch presentation
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
The ORIGINS Business Coaching program will be broken into two Tiers based on each entrepreneur’s Creative Business Ladder Score
Tier 1: Experimenting and Starting Businesses
Participants working in Tier 1 will be led by Roderick Ramsey
Tier 2: Emerging, Sustaining, Scaling, and Manufacturing Businesses
Participants working in Tier 2 will be led by Nisha Blackwell
Regardless of which Tier participants are working within, the structure remains the same. OBC participants will meet three times a month, including two one-on-one sessions with their Tier coach, have “homework” to complete, and will meet once a month with their peer group for a special guest presentation or topic discussion. ORIGINS Business Coaching participants should expect to commit approximately 10-12 hours a month to the program.
