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The Black Entrepreneurship Program
The Black Entrepreneurship Program (BEP) is a partnership between the Canadian Government, Black-led business organizations, and financial institutions. It will deliver over CAN $397.6 million (USD $295 million) over a period of four years.
What are the main aims and objectives?
The main aim of the Black Entrepreneurship Program is to support Black Canadian business owners and entrepreneurs who face systemic barriers to accessing financial resources and opportunities. The program intends to narrow the gap the wealth gap and empower Black businesses by providing funding and capacity building support. The stated objectives of the program include creating new Black-owned businesses, growing existing Black-owned businesses, creating jobs for Black Canadians and providing expanding the support the Black-led organizations provide businesses.
How does the program work?
The Black Entrepreneurship Program has three main components: the Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund (BELF), the National Ecosystem Fund (NEF) and the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH).
The Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund
The BELF is delivered through a partnership between the Government of Canada, Black-led business organizations and financial institutions. It will provide a total of $352.3 million to Black entrepreneurs and business owners with Individual loans of up to $250.000. The loans can be used for capital investments, working capital and short-term receivable financing.
To be eligible for BELF applicants must:
- Self identify as Black or Black-led (majority of ownership of more than 51% by Black Canadians)
- Be a legal resident of Canada over the age of 18: Canadian citizen, permanent resident, conventional refugee (for micro loans only) or a legal entity owner and controlled by a Canadian citizen or citizens.
- Be a start-up or existing for-profit business.
- Be a corporation, sole proprietorship, for-profit social enterprise, or a cooperative.
- Have a business plan, business registration, and recent financial statements (or financial projections for start-ups).
National Ecosystem Fund
The goal of the NEF is to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem for Black entrepreneurs and business owners. The fund has delivered an overall investment of $100 million to Black-led organizations across Canada. These organisations have either developed new services or expanded existing services they offer to provide mentorship, networking, financial planning, and business training for Black entrepreneurs. The fund is administered by Regional Development Agencies across Canada and is no longer accepting applications. A full list of approved organizations can be found here.
Through the NEF, eligible organizations can access up to CAN $3 million (USD $2.2 million) for regional projects or CAN $5 million (USD $3.7 million) for national projects. Eligible activities for funding under the Ecosystem Fund must include one or more of the following:
- Networking, matchmaking, and mentorship opportunities
- Incubator and accelerator programs
- Business advisory services to help entrepreneurs develop business plans, access capital etc
- Efforts to scale up programs that support Black entrepreneurs across regions and on a nation basis
- Other activities that will support the objectives of the Ecosystem Fund (such as financial skills – credit, business, loan management, digital literacy, etc)
The Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub
The BEKH is a national hub for research, data, and insights on Black entrepreneurship in Canada. BEKH brings together a large network of community groups, entrepreneurs, universities and research scholars to collaborate and conduct research across sectors. Activities include conducting large-scale qualitative and quantitative research, providing a detailed map of Black business ecosystems across the country, identifying critical gaps where Black entrepreneurs are facing the largest challenges. The research is publicly accessible.
What is the overall cost?
Overall, the program will cost Canadian $396.3 million with $138.3 million coming from the Government of Canada and the rest from corporate partners.
- The National Ecosystem Fund has received CAN $100 million (approx $74 million) funded by the Canadian government
- The Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund has received CAN $33.3 million (approx USD $24.8 million) from the Canadian government, CAN $130 million (approx USD $96.7 million) investment from BDC and CAN $189 million (approx USD $146.6 million) joint commitment from the other financial institutions listed as partners
- The Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub has received CAN $5 million (approx USD $3.7 million) from the Canadian Government.
How was it implemented?
The Black Entrepreneurship Program was created by the Canadian government as a response to the challenges faced by Black owned businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic. The program was developed in collaboration with Black-led business organizations and financial institutions including RBC, BMO Financia Group, Scotiabank, CIBC, National Bank, TD, Vancity, and Alterna Savings.
The loan program is administered by the Federation of African Canadian Economics (FACE) and BEKH is led by Carleton University's Sprott School of Business and Dream Legacy Foundation.
In developing the program, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) undertook a series of consultations with the Black Canadian community on the design and implementation of the program so that it would accurately reflect the realities and needs of Black Canadians. Over the course of this phase, 11 virtual discussions were held with 125 participants in total and representations from 64 different organizations within the Black entrepreneurship ecosystem in Canada. One of the main take aways from this process was that the program needed to be run by the Black Canadian community for the Black Canadian community which was reflected in the choice of partners to administer the programs and the decision to use the NEF to fund Black-led organizations instead of developing new programs of support from scratch. The full findings of the consultation can be found here.
What impact has been measured?
In February 2023, Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development announced the achievement of important milestones for the Black Entrepreneurship Program. Since its launch in 2021, the program has:
- Helped more than 5,000 Black business owners and entrepreneurs get mentorship, business training and financing to help their businesses grow
- Hundreds of Black-owned businesses have received loans totalling more than CAN $30 million (approx USD $22.3 million)
- 43 ecosystem organisations have been funded through the National Ecosystem Fund
- BEKH is up and running and held its first symposium in November which successfully identified challenges to focus its research program around
However, no information has yet been provided on the number of Black-owned businesses formed as a result of the program and no impact assessments on the wider economy have been published. Given that the program still has two more years left to run we anticipate more outcome analysis will be produced in the next few years.
What lessons can be learned?
The Black Entrepreneurship Program in Canada has faced some criticisms since its launch. One of the main criticisms is related to the Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, which was criticised early on for being difficult to access and for turning down more than 85% of applications, with no appeals process for rejected applicants. This is despite promising to provide a multi-step, independent review of the original decision. Some applicants reported being rejected without being given a reason.
Some entrepreneurs have also stated that the fund requires personally invasive information and is unclear about repayment terms. The program is run by the Federation of African Canadian Economics (FACE), and some interested parties have questioned FACE's experience and technical proficiency. However, the CEO of FACE has apologized for early communication issues surrounding the rollout and promised to improve.
Despite these administrative problems the program has been praised for its comprehensive approach to supporting Black-owned businesses and for the collaborative approach it has taken. Most importantly the Canadian Government have achieved significant buy-in for the program from the Black community by first consulting them, then building the program around their suggestions and finally placing Black community leaders in charge of delivery. This is a model that should be emulated by policymakers seeking to build programs aimed at including disadvantaged groups.
