Connecting Immigrant Entrepreneurs with Tools to Succeed

One third of New Yorkers are immigrants, yet they own half of all small businesses in the city.

In the face of language, cultural, financial, and other barriers foreign-born residents face to make those businesses succeed, their rate of entrepreneurship outpaces the general population.

That passion and grit is the hallmark of what makes each immigrant an instant New Yorker – and a welcome addition to our city. Despite this resiliency, there are challenges that remain for many immigrant New Yorkers when they hope to launch a small business.

The New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS), with the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio, is committed to supporting the entrepreneurial dreams of immigrants, as we do for all New Yorkers. Immigrant entrepreneurs are creating jobs for themselves, their families and communities, which are critical to a vibrant local economy. This is why our department was proud to partner with the mayor and Citi Community Development to launch the Immigrant Business Initiative.

This program recognizes that New York is home to immigrants from over 150 different countries, and many immigrant New Yorkers have unique needs that need to be met in order to succeed in business and achieve economic empowerment and upward mobility. We understand that it takes a variety of tools to serve each immigrant population, so our work is tailored to the needs of local communities.

Together, through the Immigrant Business Initiative, we have partnered with trusted community organizations embedded in high-immigrant population neighborhoods to deliver free services to foreign-born entrepreneurs. Now, local groups – including the Business Outreach Center Network, the Brooklyn Public Library, Renaissance Economic Development Corporation, Sapna NYC, and Shorefront YM-YWHA – provide small-business owners with free business courses, one-on-one counseling, referrals to personal financial counseling and citizenship assistance, and community-based outreach in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Haitian Creole, and Bengali.

As an example of why tailored services are needed, we have learned that South Asian immigrant women are one of the fastest growing ethnic communities in New York City, yet they face barriers to financial independence, including limited English proficiency and the need for culturally-sensitive job training and entrepreneurial programs. To help address these needs, we have partnered with Sapna NYC to help these New Yorkers to overcome obstacles - and provided training to a group of Bengali-speaking women to launch their own childcare worker cooperative, Ideal Childcare. Participants are building on their childcare experiences with classes on business development, research, marketing, customer relationships, office management, and bookkeeping. They also complete classes for all the required childcare certifications.

"Sapna NYC helped bring experts to our group so we could learn more about cooperatives and get trainings to become childcare providers. We were able to learn in Bengali and all our classes were free," said Umme J., a recent immigrant from Bangladesh.

Since launching in 2014, nearly 3,000 immigrant entrepreneurs have been served by the Department of Small Business Services' Immigrant Business Initiative, the majority of who are low- to moderate-income individuals. The citywide effort has been so successful, we want to ensure as many immigrants know about these valuable free services as possible. This fall, SBS launched a new marketing campaign sponsored by Citi. We have ads running in six languages and nine different local ethnic newspapers, featuring real business owners that took advantage of the program.

As a part of the initiative, SBS collaborates with the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Department of Consumer Affairs' Office of Financial Empowerment to help community partners to address clients' personal financial needs and build pathways to naturalization by connecting to a more comprehensive set of services.

In addition to their valuable support and expertise, Citi has contributed more than $3.6 million over the last five years toward SBS programs. These funds have helped SBS roll out innovative efforts in which municipal budgets cannot always be the first investor.

By designing and implementing successful pilot programs together, we are building platforms for a more inclusive New York City.