Reaching out to both current and future customers, Citizens Bank has given a three-year $100,000 grant to the new InnerCity Entrepreneurs initiative, a program designed to foster growth in minority-owned small businesses.

Boston University’s Entrepreneurial Management Institute and Department of Sociology have teamed up with Roxbury Community College’s Small Business Development Institute to offer networking, education and research resources to local small businesses through the InnerCity Entrepreneurs, or ICE, program.

“We were looking for opportunities to give back to the neighborhoods we do business with. These smaller businesses are vitally important to these communities, providing resources, jobs and future opportunities for business,” said Julie Connelly, vice president and director of community relations at Citizens.

Citizens chose to sponsor ICE because of the program’s unique focus on inner cities and minorities, according to Connelly. The pilot aims to create a replicable model that can be used in any inner city.

“I thought it was important to invest in the inner cities,” she said. “And as these businesses grow and expand, we might have an opportunity to help them with capital; they are possible future customers.”

The program may also help Citizens in terms of the Community Reinvestment Act; the bank might receive credit in all three CRA categories of lending, investment and service, said Connelly.

Roxbury Community College approached Citizens for financing last year. After six months of talks with the college to identify all the partners and flesh out the details, Citizens gave ICE the grant in January. But the bank’s sponsorship doesn’t stop there.

“We hope to be involved in the next three years,” Connelly said. “I hope our business lenders participate in the training offered to these businesses.”

ICE staff has already spoken with a number of the bank’s small-business lenders, as well as local business and community leaders, asking them to recommend businesses to become participants in the program’s first class, which will start this fall.

Marketing and information sessions began about a month ago, and seven applications have already come in. Through the program’s Web site, www.bu.edu/ice, and nominations from other businesses and local leaders, ICE hopes to have between 20 and 30 businesses from which to choose, according to ICE Director Andrew Wolk. Ultimately, between 10 and 14 small businesses will be selected to participate.

The class will be chosen according to three categories: individual characteristics, such as commitment and leadership; current status, in terms of strength and ability to handle growth; and community involvement.

Eligible candidates must have been in business for at least three years, have annual revenue of between $250,000 and $2 million, have an interest in growth and market share, and have an interest in increasing their number of employees.

The program will begin with a business assessment based on the Malcolm Baldrige management model. Based on those results, some businesses will be recommended to join the ICE Re-Energize program, or will be connected with appropriate local programs elsewhere.

Building a Network
The second phase, Re-Energize, is the cornerstone of the ICE program. For a $495 tuition fee, participants will earn a certificate in Small Business Entrepreneurship in six months. Each participant will use his or her own business as the case study and write a three-year strategic growth plan. The coursework is followed by one year of participating in a learning circle and working with a mentor.

The Business Leadership Forum portion of the program will bring together dozens of existing business owners for a half-day program of peer-to-peer learning and networking led by successful business owners.

ICE will also develop research and case studies of different kinds of businesses in the inner city, and their social and economic impacts on the community, through a research partnership with Initiative for a Competitive Inner City-Boston.

“It’s an appealing mix of elements of other programs out there, with peer support, expert speakers and affordability,” said Susan Labandibar, owner of Computer Warehouse on Dorchester Avenue in South Boston.

Labandibar started Computer Warehouse in 1994, selling complete used computer systems. She and her staff slowly gained computer expertise and started acting as the information technology staff for other small businesses. Today, the $1.1 million company builds servers, computers and workstations for both small-business and nonprofit clients, while continuing to operate the retail store.

“My interest is in promoting my business, as well as giving back to the community and making sure my business is socially and environmentally responsible,” Labandibar said.

Owning a small business, especially in the inner city, poses special challenges.

“It’s actually important to learn how to build your business so it doesn’t need you; that’s the true measure of success,” Labandibar said, and a skill she hopes to acquire with ICE.

The vision of ICE started about three years ago with Boston University Sociology Professor Daniel J. Monti, when he began to explore ways in which small businesses and entrepreneurs could help revitalize inner-city communities. His work recognized that business leaders, as they become successful, become civic leaders. But often in ethnic inner-city communities, business owners start marketing to their own ethnic groups and become isolated. So he proposed offering direct assistance to small-business owners in neighborhoods with minority or ethnic populations.

Monti approached BU’s School of Management with his idea. School of Management faculty member Wolk had been working on similar ideas at the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp., offering technical assistance to residents interested in starting a business.

“In our country, there are tremendous resources for people in the inner city to gain capital, but a lack of attention and resources to businesses interested in growth,” Wolk said.

Wolk and Monti combined their ideas and then formed a partnership with Roxbury Community College. The college then approached Citizens.

“Citizens really liked the fact that we were putting the program right in the middle of the community,” said Wolk. The bank is involved in the community development aspect of the program and has come up with a few “tremendous” ideas, he added.

“This is the only program I’ve seen that’s doing a few things: one, going as deep in terms of the way we have applicants learn and how long they learn for; two, their own business is the case study from which they learn; and three, the whole community aspect,” said Wolk. “With each class we graduate, we would hope those businesses would come back and help the next class, building a significant network of civic leaders.”