🔒Worcester is seeing a resurgence of minority-owned small businesses

To say the coronavirus pandemic impacted small businesses would be a serious understatement. Lockdowns, supply chain shortages, labor shortages, and inflation have hindered businesses and forced industries to quickly adapt or close up shop.

For small businesses owned by people of color, the pandemic was downright apocalyptic. In 2019, 125,988 employees worked at minority-owned businesses in Massachusetts. By 2020, that number fell to 62,049 employees. This problem is coupled with an economic slowdown dubbed The Shecession because of the disproportionate number of women who left the workforce during the pandemic.

Now, as the global and local economies continue their recovery from COVID’s initial phases, more of these professionals from historically disadvantaged populations are beginning to start their own businesses, finding ways to mold their careers around their lifestyles. 

“We are seeing that Worcester and Worcester County at large are getting more diverse by a significant degree compared to 10 years ago. I expect that to translate to business ownership as well,” said David Sullivan, economic development and business recruitment associate for the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. 

The Boston nonprofit Lawyers for Civil Rights, which provides free legal services to upstart businesses and particularly those run by people of color, is expanding its outreach in Worcester, as it has seen a rise in minority-owned, woman-owned, immigrant-owned businesses in the city, said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston.

“Free legal services for small businesses are extraordinarily rare and at the same time it is one of the greatest needs that small businesses have along with capitalization and ensuring their visibility in the marketplace. Without free legal services, small businesses struggle with common pitfalls, such as how to form entities and how to organize their business,” Espinoza-Madrigal said.

The only Black woman in the room

In October 2020, Worcester resident Shawna Curran founded her business STEM ENRG, seeking to help women of color enter the tech sector by providing classes on coding and design. Curran wanted to combine her passion for the tech industry with her experience as a woman of color and young mother in a field where diverse representation is scarce.

“What I discovered though was that over the years, being a young Black woman with a child, I really did have to think differently to do well in the industry. I was very often the only Black woman in the room, and sometimes the whole company,” she said.

Greater Boston remains the hub for tech jobs, said Curran, but she believes Worcester has the potential to be a diversity rich, tech hub. By offering training through STEM ENRG, she seeks to draw tech businesses into the city by providing a trained workforce. 

Curran is exactly the type of professional Lawyers for Civil Rights is seeing flock to its programs, said Priya Lane, the director for LCR’s BizGrow program focusing on entrepreneurship. Individuals were motivated to open their own businesses after they were laid off during the pandemic, while others re-evaluated their priorities and decided to open their own shops, Lane said.

“They don’t have the family history or culture of entrepreneurship in this country,” Lane said. “It is those lack of connections that cause opportunity gaps that are not necessarily hard to bridge, but can definitely make or break the business if it isn’t bridge.”

Curran reached out to LCR for help creating a non-disclosure agreement to protect her intellectual property, saying she wouldn’t have been able to afford the legal services for STEM ENRG otherwise.

The lack of access to affordable legal services is one of many barriers keeping small businesses owned by people of color and immigrants from developing, Curran said. She said prejudice heightens scrutiny for minority groups, which results in them needing more legal protection they oftentimes cannot afford.

“Being a woman of color means that people look at me closer. I’ve always had to be exquisite with my output because I know that I would get more scrutiny,” Curan said. “So, it is really important to me that I don’t just Google something and fly by the seat of my pants, particularly with things such as legal matters and accounting matters.”

Throughout its service area, BizGrow initially helped 54 small businesses in 2015. In 2021, that number has grown to 1,152 and counting.

Supporting diverse businesses

Diversity is naturally taking shape among small businesses owners as these new entrepreneurs look to blaze their own trails, Lane said.

The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce has seen a naturally forming influx of diverse-owned businesses in the city, which parallels national trends, said Sullivan, and affordability may be a factor, since Worcester is more cost-effective than locations east of Interstate 495, near Boston.

In 2019, Worcester had 7,583 minority-owned businesses and 19,245 woman-owned businesses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Worcester chamber has increased its programs specifically geared towards encouraging diversity and inclusion in business and ownership. In 2019, the Worcester chamber teamed up with the Worcester Regional Food Hub for its Launching Diverse Food Entrepreneurs, to provide free technical assistance to immigrant, refugee, and woman-owned businesses looking to enter the food industry.

The StartUp Worcester program encourages diversity by training new entrepreneurs and providing them with tools such as free chamber membership and a coworking space. The goal of the program is to select future business owners with varied backgrounds and experiences and help them achieve their small business goals, Sullivan said.

“We try to make sure that this is a home for everybody, that it is inclusive, diverse, and really respects the cultures of the people who choose this place as their home,” he said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Shawna Curran's business. The correct spelling is STEM ENRG.