The Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program completes a survey of course attendees after each session, and the program is adjusted according to the feedback from the participants, from the survey, in class, and followup contact.  The results from last years survey are overwhelmingly positive, and program changes based on previous participants feedback, including a couple of sessions on small business finance, resulted in positive feedback results this year.

Lets describe the Rotman Regent Park Small Business program structure concretely so that the successful formula can be replicated elsewhere.  A business school provides the following elements for a micro-entrepreneurship program:

• Administrative Support
• Business Faculty
• Entrepreneurial Instructors
• Network of connections
• Alumni as coaches
• Library resources
• Brand extension

1. Administrative Support

Every program requires substantial administrative support.  Administrative support includes arranging physical space; intake of participants including short interviews; putting together program materials; ensuring food, drink and childcare needs are covered; reminders to faculty and participants; maintaining the program website; program budgets; and internal reports.  The Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program has been extremely lucky in having an administrator, Peter Scott,  who is deeply interested in the success of this program and puts in many unpaid overtime hours to ensure everything runs smoothly.

2. Business Faculty

One of the main attractions of the program to participants is having access to world class faculty from the Rotman School of Management.  The course participants normally would not be able to have access to faculty through MBA courses and other non-degree programs due to financial barriers.  Running a continuing program also requires an Academic Director. The Academic Director ensures the design of the curriculum meets the needs of the participants, involves other faculty in the program , and ensures any research conducted as part of the program falls within the ethical guidelines set by the university.  The Academic Director of the Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program is professor Ann Armstrong, who has always been on the forefront of social enterprise issues.

3. Entrepreneurial Faculty

A business school is not only able to involve professors who specialize in entrepreneurship, but also engage instructors who are extremely successful Entrepreneurs. The Rotman School of Management has an Entrepreneur In residence, Tom Corr, who along with Economics professor Doug Hyatt led some of the most highly rated sessions this year.  There is nothing that can replace actual entrepreneurial experience  The war stories that come out of that entrepreneurial experience provides program participants lessons learned from failures, that entrepreneurs have to live through to go on to successes.

4. Network of connections

The Rotman School of Management has built a positive reputation in the financial industry in Toronto, where a large number of MBA graduates are employed.  Therefore the school has a wide network of connections to call on where financial expertise is needed.  One of the most frequently requested sections of the program is on small business finance.  Through its network, Rotman was able to organize two different classes on Small Business Finance, one from a community based credit union, and another from a large bank, providing different perspectives on small business loans, for enterprises at different levels of development.

5. Alumni as Coaches

Rotman has a number of degree and certificate programs, therefore creating alumni who come from a diverse range of backgrounds and interests.  The benefit of having business school alumni is that they have all attained a certain level of knowledge of business, and are capable coaches for budding entrepreneurs.  This year, Rotman was able to sign up more coaches than participants, and multiple coaches helped multiple participants.  The participants appreciated one on one and group coaching, and even requested more time with coaches to develop different aspects of their business ideas.

6. Library resources

Another unique class Rotman offered was a session by the Business Librarian, Sean Forbes, on Small Business Resources on the Internet.  A number of program participants in previous years have asked for small business resources available on the internet, and a Business Librarian can add value not only in collating a list of appropriate resources, but also in pointing out each resources strengths and weaknesses and answering program participants questions.  Program participants can also use library resources during normal library hours.

7. Brand Extension

Brands and reputations are very important to business schools, since they have been built up over years and decades.  Receiving a certificate of program completion from a highly reputed business school is also very important to program participants.  Many program participants proudly mention their certificate from the Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program on their resumes.  At the same time it is important for the integrity of the program that certificates are only awarded to people who attend the majority of classes.

Some starting points

If you are trying to start a micro-enterprise program at your school, here are some starting points:

a) Find someone with a personal connection.

The program at Rotman started with contact with the former Director of Executive Programs, Michael Hartmann, who lived close to Regent Park, and therefore had exposure to the issues of the area first hand, and could see the benefits of a small business program for disadvantaged groups.

b) Start with Professors with a a social bent

The program at Rotman is spearheaded by Ann Armstrong, who is faculty advisor for a number of social cause oriented student groups, and is also director of the Social Enterprise Initiative.  There are professors with a social orientation at every business school.  One observation is that Marketing professors were the first ones to sign up for the program.  Something about developing a close relationship with customers that enables marketing professors to be great micro-enterprise instructors.

c) Promote the brand of the school

The Rotman School of Management provides facilities at no cost, administrative support as a contribution in kind, and the faculty teach the courses pro-bono.  As a recognition of the contribution of the business school, always promote the benefits of the program internally and externally to ensure that the broadest range of stakeholders support the ongoing operation of the program.

Are there any other schools with similar micro-enterprise programs for disadvantaged populations ?

I will post links any other similar programs here in this blog.

No related posts.

The confluence of a number of events in Toronto over the past couple of weeks inspired this post.  The following events are an indication that Toronto lives up to its reputation as the most multicultural, open and tolerant city in the world:

1. Canada Day celebrated by new and old Canadians from all over the world.

2. The annual Pride parade which is one of the largest exhibitions of gay culture in the world.

3. The City of Toronto CUPE Local 79 and CUPE Local 416 strike action, which at least according to the unions, is about equal treatment in the context of a brutal recession.

In the past couple of years, The United Way of Greater Toronto, a social service agency that has a finger on the pulse of the social needs of Toronto through its various member agencies, documented a number of pointed reports, including Losing Ground: The persistent growth of family poverty in Canada’s largest city, which builds on previous reports such as Poverty by Postal Code (2004) indicating a growing gap between high and low income areas in Toronto.

David Hulchanski, at The Centre for Urban and Community Studies (CUCS), University of Toronto, supports these findings in a report titled The Three Cities Within Toronto: Income polarization, 1970–2000. Richard Florida, in his book Who Is Your City, determines from the Place and Happiness Survey a cluster of factors to be key to our happiness in our communities, the third factor being EQUITY.

“… equity and includes affordable housing, manageable traffic patterns, and being a good place to live for senior citizens and the poor.” (emphasis mine)

A solution to growing poverty in Toronto: Entrepreneurship

One of the interesting statistics highlighted in the Sources of Income in the United Way of Greater Toronto report, Losing Ground: The persistent growth of family poverty in Canada’s largest city, indicates that:

“Self-employment was also high among low-income, two-parent families. In Toronto, one-quarter of these family taxfilers relied on income from some form of self-employment, as did one-third in the rest of the CMA.”

A short paper we did a couple of years ago confirms the notion that entrepreneurship is often the most viable option for economic self-sufficiency for a number of low income groups. We found that three of the most economically disadvantaged groups in the city, Somali, Afghan, and bangladeshi immigrants, had organically started cooperative style businesses.

The trend towards self-employment and entrepreneurship as the most viable option for not all, but a significant number of people, has been accelerated by the current prolonged recession:

Thomas Frey, seasoned entrepreneur and futurist at the DaVinci Institute explains in his article The Coming Wave of Entrepreneurship that there are a couple of significant trends: “ Trend No. 6: Reason for optimism: The online digital world is an engine that requires little startup capital. Profitability for new business is often within reach of even those with little or no money. Little wonder more and more talent is shifting away from physical products toward the online marketplace.”
“Trend No. 7: One-person businesses are springing to life with surprising regularity. The Empire of One business model, which seems to be under the radar of colleges and business schools, is catching fire because of innovations that have leveled the playing field, allowing individuals to compete with much larger companies.”

The National Post, one of Canada’s national newspapers, has picked up on the self employment trend during the current recession in the article: Being the boss never looked better.

The Toronto Star, Toronto’s preeminent paper, also highlights the trend in the article Self-employment: The ‘do-it-yourself recovery’.

The most compelling evidence for micro-enterprise as a viable option for economically disadvantaged groups comes from the 500 organization strong and growing members of the The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO).  CEO of AEO member Rising Tide Capital, Alfa Demmellash, was recently selected and highlighted as a CNN Hero.

In summary, Toronto prides itself as a city of inclusion, but it is also a city of growing economic inequality.  Entrepreneurship is one of the solutions to reducing this growing economic inequality and its inherent negative consequences.  There is a rising tide of evidence that more people can become Free Agents, as described by Daniel Pink. Entrepreneurship is not just the province of those that have economic advantages, but entrepreneurship is also a means to economic independence for a broader group of participants including groups who are economically disadvantaged.

Related posts:

1. Toronto and the Ethos of Open Source

So my first question is: Is there a strong level of open source leadership in Toronto ?

Open Source Technology Leadership is thriving in Toronto.  A long list of Toronto, and Ontario Open Source groups can be found on the Canadian Association for Open Source website.  A smaller but more Toronto specific list can be found on the Toronto Technology Map.  The number of unconference camps held in Toronto and the surrounding area, including the Public Transit related TransitCamp and Government and Democracy related ChangeCamp which I attended, indicate not only a strong diversity of open source technology, but also open source approaches to solving social problems in Toronto.  For those unfamiliar with the whole BarCamp concept, check out the Wikipedia definition of BarCamp or the Barcamp Community Wiki, and then go attend or start one in your city.

My second question is can open source leadership energy be directed towards helping disadvantaged groups use open source technology to start businesses ?

In accordance with the theme of this blog, can I persuade the Toronto Open Source Community to put together the resources (software, hardware, support) to help people with few resources to start their own business ? i.e. open source operating system, open source word processing and spreadsheet software, open source web publishing and blogging software, etc.

I believe there is a sufficient suite of open source software tools, that will enable people with few resources to avoid the higher costs of licensed software.  Small business requirements tend to be satisfied with the basic functionality available in open source applications, without the bells and whistles typically available in commercially licensed software.  More importantly, the ethos of open source will encourage the participant to learn some software skills along the way, and eventually contribute back to the open source community in some form.

I will let you know what results emailing, calling, and networking with the Toronto Open Source community provides through this blog.

Any suggestions for Open Source software applications required for a business ?

Any particular people or organizations I should contact ?

Some interesting sessions I led at Metronauts TransitCamp and ChangeCamp Toronto:

Transforming Transit Union Employees into Transit Evangelists

ChangeCamp: Business Involvement in the Promotion of Civic Participation

No related posts.

The Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, runs a program every Spring in Regent Park, titled the Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program. The program enables residents in and around Regent Park to access a business education course from university professors, particularly when the residents may not be able to afford University or College level courses. The Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program was initiated in 2006, and has received some positive press coverage, and is in the process of becoming institutionalized as a long term program.

The purpose of this blog, is to treat the whole process of institutionalizing the Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program as a structured project, to identify the steps, resources, and people required to make it happen. This blog is different from other projects since it is also a social experiment, in treating the project as a distributed and parallel problem solving challenge using social networks such as LinkedIn and FaceBook. None of us individually have the resources to make it happen, but collectively, we do !

The Rotman Regent Park Small Business Program has been running for four years, and based on feedback, the program could be strengthened in two main areas:

Related posts:

1. Toronto and the Ethos of Open Source