Diversity & Inclusion

Interise, a Boston-based nonprofit with the goal of providing resources and assistance to minority-owned or low-income area-based organizations, has brought its NextStage Minority Business Entrepreneur Academy and NextStage Accelerator to Central Massachusetts in partnership with The Urban League of Springfield and Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.

Worcester artists collective El Salón and community radio station, WCUW, each received MassDevelopment Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) Creative Catalyst Grants for projects serving their communities.

Aspiring nurse aides should be allowed to take the certification exam in languages other than English, lawmakers and advocates said Thursday as they sought to revive support for a measure that died at the legislative finish line last year.

State agencies should aim to spend $18 million with LGBT-owned businesses and $18 million with disability-owned businesses in the new fiscal year that starts Saturday, Gov. Maura Healey announced on the final day of Pride Month.

The Gov. Maura Healey Administration has created two new online resource hubs for the LGBTQ+ community, intended to ease access to behavioral and mental health services and support.

Vintage Rebel Curiosity Shop in Leicester refers to itself as “We’re one of those ‘don't know you need it until you see it’ kind of stores.”

As Abby’s House begins an expansion, the nonprofit’s new executive director brings a decade of experience serving vulnerable Central Mass. residents.

The payrolls of Asian-owned businesses in Massachusetts grew from $1.2 billion to nearly $4 billion over the 18-year period ending in 2020, according to a new report that collates information from national and local sources.

Amid debate over how to keep Massachusetts competitive and how tax cuts figure into that goal, Senate President Karen Spilka emphasized Thursday the importance of "shoring up and expanding" the state's middle class.

The Cove, a seven-story development abutting Polar Park in Worcester, has awarded 18% of its contracts so far going to subcontractors run by women or people of color.