JumpStart Gets $300K Grant for Diversity Initiatives
CLEVELAND -- KeyBank Foundation has awarded $300,000 over three years to JumpStart, a nonprofit venture development organization. JumpStart will use the funds to continue its diversity initiatives for small businesses, which include awareness-building outreach and high-impact assistance delivery.
When the funds are disbursed, Key will have contributed $1.1 million over nine years in support of efforts to advise and educate high-growth minority, female and inner-city entrepreneurs in Greater Cleveland, said Margot Copeland, chairman of KeyBank Foundation and chief diversity officer at the bank.
JumpStart encourages minorities and women to start and scale ventures that have the potential to create jobs and have an impact on their communities. The organization also connects those entrepreneurs to a continuum of resources and delivers programs and services tailored to their needs.
"The region and the country need to support diverse entrepreneurs on the high-growth path -- especially because minority firms employ minority workers at more than twice the rate of non-minority firms," said JumpStart CEO Ray Leach in a prepared statement. "Clearly, a thriving, inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem contributes to economic vitality and could help to address inner-city economic challenges."
To date, JumpStart has provided support to 209 minority and inner-city companies that subsequently have raised $316 million in capital since 2004. These same firms have created and sustained 1,400 jobs, Leach noted.
KeyBank Foundation is a nonprofit charitable foundation, funded by KeyCorp. and founded in 1969. Its three areas of philanthropic focus are financial education, workforce development and diversity.
JumpStart has provided intensive business assistance to more than 450 entrepreneurial clients and invested in 76 companies in their early states in northeastern Ohio.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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