Tag Archives: Supplier diversity programs

BofA Strengthens Support for Arizona Entrepreneurs through State’s Largest Supplier Diversity Program Impact AZ

PHOENIX, Ariz., Nov. 19, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Bank of America has reaffirmed its commitment to fostering economic growth in Arizona’s small business community by renewing its IMPACT AZ 2025 partnership with a $40,000 grant, bolstering the impact of the state’s largest supplier diversity program. This significant investment has empowered participating businesses to secure $4.1 million in SBA funding, helping to build generational wealth and drive job creation across the state, stated Millionaire Mastermind Academy Inc.

Photo caption: Impact AZ Participants with Scott Vanderpool, President of Bank of America Phoenix.

In addition, over $5 million in supplier diversity opportunities have been granted, and more than $200,000 in scholarships have been awarded, sparking local workforce growth and creating new job opportunities. With Bank of America’s support, IMPACT AZ 2025 will continue its mission of supporting entrepreneurs to build capacity for contracting opportunities.

In its newly released Women and Minority Business Owner Spotlight, Bank of America surveyed business owners nationwide, revealing shared optimism—nearly 80% of respondents anticipating revenue growth in the coming year. An event higher, 88% of respondents plan on obtaining funding for their business in the year ahead, making IMPACT AZ’s training and support even more critical for continued growth beyond government funding sources.

“Bank of America has been an invaluable partner in our efforts to close the racial wealth gap and promote economic growth for Arizona’s small businesses and communities,” said Dr. Velma Trayham, creator of IMPACT AZ 2025 and President and CEO of the Black Chamber of Arizona. “We are grateful for their dedication to empowering diverse entrepreneurs and enhancing economic opportunities across the state.”

IMPACT AZ 2025 serves diverse participants including veteran, justice-impacted, women-owned, and LGBTQ+ business owners. Participants receive hands-on support through the structured hybrid program and partnerships with businesses, local government, and nonprofit organizations such as SCORE, Arizona Public Service, the City of Phoenix, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber, and the City of Scottsdale. The program provides support in essential areas like strategic business planning, marketing, finance, operations, and supplier diversity business development to help these entrepreneurs scale, become employer firms, and access public and private contracting opportunities.

“Local small businesses are the heart of our Phoenix economy, and Millionaire Mindset Academy’s IMPACT 2025 program assists entrepreneurs working to build and grow their businesses while creating local jobs in the Phoenix market,” said Scott Vanderpool, President of Bank of America Phoenix. “Bank of America works alongside Impact 2025, delivering workshops and connecting with participants, so together we can continue to shape a collaborative environment where small business can thrive.”

Supplier diversity delivers better business outcomes: According to Supplier.io, for every $1 spent on supplier diversity programs, communities benefit by $1.80. These programs created more than 1.3 million jobs in 2023 alone. ImpactAZ helped participants secure $2 million in contracts in its first year, expand business operations by 40 percent, and allocate $300,000 in capital funding.

About ImpactAZ 2025

ImpactAZ 2025 is a statewide multi-year supplier-diversity accelerator that provides entrepreneurs with technical assistance, mentoring, public and private business exchange opportunities, and access to capital to increase readiness for contracting opportunities. The fundamental objective of IMPACT AZ 2025 is to decrease the racial wealth gap using entrepreneurship as an engine. IMPACT AZ 2025 is a Millionaire Mastermind Academy Inc. program in partnership with the Black Chamber of Arizona.

For more information, visit https://impactaz2025.com/

MULTIMEDIA:

Photo link for media: https://www.Send2Press.com/300dpi/24-1019=s2p-impactaz-300dpi.jpg

Photo caption: Impact AZ Participants with Scott Vanderpool, President of Bank of America Phoenix

NEWS SOURCE: Millionaire Mastermind Academy

This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (Millionaire Mastermind Academy), who is solely responsible for its accuracy, by Send2Press Newswire. Image, if any, was provided by the news source and not this website or the wire service. Information is believed accurate, as provided by the news source, but is not guaranteed.

To view the original story, visit: https://www.send2press.com/wire/bofa-strengthens-support-for-arizona-entrepreneurs-through-states-largest-supplier-diversity-program-impact-az/

Black Chamber of Arizona New Member Orientation Presented by BMO a Resounding Success!

PHOENIX, Ariz. /ScoopCloud/ -- The Black Chamber of Arizona proudly announces the success of our recent New Member Orientation & Karaoke Night, held on July 26, 2024. The event, designed to welcome new members and foster a sense of community, was a remarkable evening of networking, fun, and camaraderie.

"We are thrilled by the turnout and the energy at our New Member Orientation & Karaoke Night. This event underscores the strength and unity of our community," said Dr. Velma Trayham, CEO of the Black Chamber of Arizona. "Our mission is to strengthen Black businesses and produce new economic buying power to build resilient pathways for financial growth across the state of Arizona. Together, we are closing the racial wealth gap, mitigating poverty, and driving innovation, job creation, and wealth building within the Black community."

We extend our deepest gratitude to our presenting sponsor, BMO Bank, whose generous support made this event possible. Their commitment to our community is truly appreciated and instrumental in helping us achieve our mission.

The evening was further enriched by the presence of our dedicated Black Chamber Board of Directors. Their insights and leadership provided invaluable guidance and inspiration to all attendees. We are grateful for their ongoing support and contributions to the Chamber's success.

The Black Chamber of Arizona has been supporting businesses for over 25 years. This ecosystem is comprised of people and programs that help to support Black business growth through educational offerings, program managers, business experts, in-house resource partners, and more. Our programming is just beginning, and we are excited about the opportunities and events we have planned for the future. We encourage everyone to join our mailing list to stay informed about upcoming programs and opportunities.

About the Black Chamber of Arizona:

The mission of the Black Chamber of Arizona is to help increase entrepreneurial and corporate diversity by building stronger businesses that serve all communities. We do this by providing tools and education to create more bankable businesses, by removing barriers that impede access to capital and by partnering with leading educational institutions to help create competitive business advantages through workforce diversity. Learn more about BCAZ at https://www.blackchamberaz.com/.

The Black Chamber of Arizona proudly announces the success of our recent New Member Orientation & Karaoke Night, held on July 26, 2024. The event, designed to welcome new members and foster a sense of community, was a remarkable evening of networking, fun, and camaraderie.

Related link: https://www.blackchamberaz.com/

The Black Chamber of Arizona Elevates Black Business Landscape with ImpactAZ Supplier Diversity Class of 2024

PHOENIX, Ariz. /ScoopCloud/ -- Building on its commitment to supporting small business owners, the Black Chamber of Arizona, in partnership with the Millionaire Mastermind Academy, is proud to announce the induction of 30 entrepreneurs into the 2024 class of its ImpactAZ Supplier Diversity Readiness Business Accelerator Program. This multi-year initiative, a cornerstone of Arizona's efforts to enhance supplier diversity, continues to offer critical resources to justice-impacted entrepreneurs, veterans, and women-owned businesses aiming for economic success and growth.

The journey for diverse entrepreneurs begins on April 24th with a kickoff event. Participants will meet their mentors, listen to insights from public and private sector leaders, and undergo a comprehensive business and leadership assessment to shape their strategic growth plans.

ImpactAZ combines in-person and online classes, mentorship, access to capital classes, hands-on capabilities statement training, technical assistance, executive leadership training, and more. With $200,000 in scholarships from our sponsors, participants access these resources for free, highlighting our commitment to inclusivity and economic growth.

Governor Katie Hobbs has recognized the significance of this initiative by declaring January 26, 2024, as "ImpactAZ Day" in light of the program's contributions to expanding Arizona's economy and supporting its minority-owned businesses. In its first year, ImpactAZ participants were awarded $2 million in contracts, expanded business operations by 40 percent, and received access to $300,000 in capital funding, demonstrating substantial progress toward achieving diverse supplier registration and employment growth.

The ImpactAZ program was designed to increase procurement opportunities with corporations and government entities, preparing business owners to compete for and win contracts effectively. With Fortune 500 companies spending about 2% annually with minority-owned suppliers - significantly below the intended 10-15% - the Chamber sees a substantial opportunity for growth and improvement in supplier diversity practices.

Dr. Velma Trayham, the newly appointed CEO of the Black Chamber of Arizona, emphasizes the program's strategic approach: "With ImpactAZ, we're focusing on increasing contracting opportunities and access to capital. By responding to the data from the State of Black Business report, we aim to elevate these businesses from poverty to significant contributors to our economy."

"Through the expertise and training it offers, ImpactAZ has demonstrated that it can help Black businesses and entrepreneurs secure new opportunities," said Deanna Murphy, Southwest Corporate Responsibility Manager for JPMorgan Chase. "Businesses are winning contracts, scaling and creating jobs while lifting the economy and closing the racial wealth gap. We're excited to continue our partnership with the program."

The 2024 cohort includes businesses from healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, real estate, services, and technology, demonstrating the program's broad appeal. This program is supported by JPMorgan Chase, Arizona Public Service (APS), the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC), Bank of America, ViaWest Group, and the City of Scottsdale, all dedicated to fostering inclusive economic development.

"ImpactAZ is a game changer, providing essential resources for entrepreneurs and connecting them with capital resources," said Monica Villalobos, CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "Scaling businesses is a major challenge for Arizona's economy, and ImpactAZ is part of the solution." The Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is a proud recipient of the federal Capital Readiness Program grant to provide technical assistance to small businesses for traditional lending. Teaming up with ImpactAZ will significantly boost resources for small businesses. Our partnership with the Black Chamber demonstrates our commitment to allyship. Together, we are stronger," she concluded.

As the ImpactAZ Supplier Diversity Business Accelerator Program enters its next phase, we invite community leaders, potential partners, and the media to support and celebrate this vital work. Together, we can advance Arizona's more inclusive and thriving economic future. Please contact the Black Chamber of Arizona to get involved.

About ImpactAZ

ImpactAZ is a statewide multi-year supplier-diversity accelerator that provides minority entrepreneurs with technical assistance, mentoring, public and private business exchange opportunities, and access to capital to increase readiness for contracting opportunities. The fundamental objective of IMPACTAZ is to close the racial wealth gap using entrepreneurship as an engine. IMPACTAZ is an official program of the Black Chamber of Arizona in partnership with the Millionaire Mastermind Academy Inc. For more information, visit https://impactaz2025.com/

About the Black Chamber of Arizona

The Black Chamber of Arizona is dedicated to improving the economic development of its business members and the community. Through programs, workshops, and advocacy, the Chamber commits itself to fostering a conducive economic environment for thriving businesses. https://www.blackchamberaz.com/

Building on its commitment to supporting small business owners, the Black Chamber of Arizona, in partnership with the Millionaire Mastermind Academy, is proud to announce the induction of 30 entrepreneurs into the 2024 class of its ImpactAZ Supplier Diversity Readiness Business Accelerator Program. This multi-year initiative, a cornerstone of Arizona's efforts to enhance supplier diversity, continues to offer critical resources to justice-impacted entrepreneurs, veterans, and women-owned businesses aiming for economic success and growth.

Related link: https://www.blackchamberaz.com/

ImpactAZ 2025 documents economic strides of statewide supplier-diversity accelerator

PHOENIX, Ariz. /ScoopCloud/ -- Thinkzilla Consulting Group today announced that ImpactAZ 2025, a statewide supplier-diversity accelerator serving black and other minority business owners, has announced the results from its inaugural cohort:

* Retail owners averaged 186 new customers

* 40% of cohort companies saw an increase in revenue and strategic partnerships

* 22% of firms hired staff or management

* Companies got $200,000 in investment

* Firms secured $2M in corporate contracts

Thirty-five participants selected for the accelerator completed the program, with 75% attending all technical assistance programming.

"Cohort CEOs are seeing such strong results because of their absolute commitment to opening up new doors of opportunity for small and historically disadvantaged businesses," said Dr. Velma Trayham, who created the accelerator and whose nonprofit provides the program management. "Corporations and Government entities expect excellence in their suppliers, and these leaders are ready to deliver."

A private celebration on January 16 will mark the cohort's graduation and signal the opening of applications for the second of the accelerators, which will commence on April 23, 2024.

About ImpactAZ 2025:

Developed in response to the State of Black Business Report, which highlighted financial gaps and opportunities for diverse business owners, ImpactAZ 2025 is a state-wide three-year series of supplier-diversity accelerators, the collective goal of which is to develop 200 startup companies, see 500 firms hire additional employees and assist 50 companies in getting corporate contracts. Using entrepreneurship as an engine, its fundamental objective is to decrease the racial wealth gap and economic insecurity among minorities.

Each of the three 36-week accelerators combines live mentoring, business coaching, and networking opportunities at its technical assistance hub in Scottsdale with online education about financial management, sales, business operations, and doing business with corporations. Personalized benchmarks and KPIs undergird each cohort company's growth plan for strengthening capital readiness and operating capacity and increasing revenue.

The solutions-drive accelerator is a program of the nonprofit Millionaire Mastermind Academy, which provides technical assistance for the initiative. Collaborators include the Black Chamber of Arizona and the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The accelerator enjoys broad corporate and community support led by JPMorgan Chase. Aventiv, Bank of America, Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project, Via West Group, American Landmark Apartments, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the City of Phoenix, Commerce Bank AZ, SCORE, and the AIANNH Project NABEDC, operated by the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation, are additional sponsors.

Learn more at https://impactaz2025.com/.

RELATED LINKS:

https://www.gpec.org/blog/regional-report-state-of-black-business-2022/

https://millionairemastermindacademy.org/

https://blackchamberaz.com/

https://www.azhcc.com/

Thinkzilla Consulting Group today announced that ImpactAZ 2025, a statewide supplier-diversity accelerator serving black and other minority business owners, has announced the results from its inaugural cohort. Thirty-five participants selected for the accelerator completed the program, with 75% attending all technical assistance programming.

Related link: https://thinkzillaconsulting.com/

Onshore Strategies Offers Flexible Oil and Gas Supply Chain Consultants and Contractors

DENVER, Colo. /ScoopCloud/ -- Onshore Strategies just launched an oil and gas-focused supply chain consulting firm that's working to solve the industry's supply chain challenges. This new, woman-owned business has proven sourcing strategies to save businesses money and time, while improving auditability, helping with ESG efforts and increasing capital. The answer is hiring consultants to meet specific demand and need.

Today's E&P companies face many challenges that range from an uncertain commodity market and cost pressures to downsizing. Onshore Strategies has expertise across all facets of the E&P supply chain and operations and it helps to tackle projects that create a ROI for organizations.

Shawn Forbes, founder and chief procurement officer, has 23 years of supply chain experience with 15 supporting oil and gas companies in upstream, midstream, downstream, engineering and oilfield supply and services. Her breadth of knowledge in indirect, operational and capital spend empowers her with a unique advantage for efficient and effective sourcing and contract negotiations. All of this know-how helps to positively impact a company's bottom line.

"I'm passionate about using our diverse set of skills to help oil and gas companies in every basin across the U.S. to not only save money, but to mitigate risk and develop and enhance processes," Forbes says.

About Onshore Strategies

Onshore Strategies, LLC is an oil and gas-focused supply chain consulting firm that offers uniquely-skilled professionals who can tackle small-to-large scale tasks, whether short or long-term. It can help with everything from critical-project procurement, spend analysis, vendor audits and spend recovery to bidding out and managing major spend categories, establishing contractor-compliance programs, vendor onboarding, fleet and material management, developing a supplier diversity program and implementing processes and procedures.

Onshore Strategies will assess, recommend and execute valuable scopes of work that are customized to each company's specific requirements and goals.

For more information about Onshore Strategies, visit: https://www.onshorestrategies.com

Onshore Strategies just launched an oil and gas-focused supply chain consulting firm that's working to solve the industry's supply chain challenges. This new, woman-owned business has proven sourcing strategies to save businesses money and time, while improving auditability, helping with ESG efforts and increasing capital. The answer is hiring consultants to meet specific demand and need.

Related link: https://www.onshorestrategies.com/

Industry-Leading No-Code Platform Certa Signs Agreement with supplier.io to Provide Diversity Analytics to Clients

PALO ALTO, Calif. /ScoopCloud/ -- Certa, the leading no-code platform for procurement, risk and compliance, and supplier.io, a pioneer in the field of supplier diversity solutions, announced a strategic partnership to bring Certa's clients supplier.io's best-in-class supplier diversity analytics.

Supplier diversity programs benefit corporations and procurement organizations by strengthening their supply chains and helping them meet the needs of government contracting regulations. supplier.io's advanced analytics identifies suppliers that are led by or owned by various disadvantaged or under-represented groups, such as minorities, women, veterans, LGBT, or the disabled.

Certa is the only platform that can digitize the end-to-end journey of suppliers, across information security, privacy, compliance, legal, etc. With this partnership, Certa's clients can find diverse firms and validate credentials.

This new strategic partnership will allow Certa's impressive and expanding client list access to supplier.io's innovative and effective diversity solutions.

Certa Founder and CEO Jag Lamba commented, "The importance of quality diversity data cannot be overstated. I'm thrilled that Certa is able to offer our clients supplier.io's comprehensive diversity data to help them grow their diversity programs."

Neeraj Shah, Founder of supplier.io said, "Our mission is to help companies make an impact by increasing their purchases from diverse businesses. We are excited to offer Certa's clients our unparalleled data intelligence to help them strengthen their supplier diversity programs."

About supplier.io

Supplier.io was founded in 2011 and has rapidly become a prominent provider of supplier diversity solutions to leading corporations. One in five Fortune 50 companies relies on supplier.io for their supplier diversity needs. They currently support customers in automotive, healthcare, insurance, retail, manufacturing, education, and banking. For more info visit https://supplier.io/.

About Certa

Certa was founded in 2015 and is the fastest growing supplier management platform. Certa makes third-party risk management fast, easy, and modern. Using 80+ no-code integrations with trusted data sources, Certa helps companies onboard third-parties 3x faster while improving risk and compliance controls. Certa's clients include several Fortune 50 retailers and a Top 3 consulting firm. Certa is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.

For more information or to schedule a demo visit https://www.getcerta.com/.

Contact:
Dudley Brundige
dudley@getcerta.com
646-248-9190

Certa, the leading no-code platform for procurement, risk and compliance, and supplier.io, a pioneer in the field of supplier diversity solutions, announced a strategic partnership to bring Certa's clients supplier.io's best-in-class supplier diversity analytics.

Related link: https://www.getcerta.com/