While there is no silver-bullet formula for developing inclusive startup communities, the most effective incubator and accelerator programs leverage key strategies for tapping talent across racial and gender lines.
The growth in startup hubs
Incubator spaces and accelerator programs have trended upward around the world as universities, big name investors, and government entities hitch themselves to the bandwagon of the “age of the entrepreneur.” Over 3,500 accelerator programs exist in the world today.
According to analysis from the Brookings Institute, the number of American accelerators—roughly 45 percent of the total programs in existence today—increased an average of 50 percent each year between 2008 and 2014.
The rise in their existence as a route to curing social ills such as unemployment, poor housing conditions, and lack of access to alternative education training, has been well received by policy makers, workforce development agencies and investors alike.
Their evolution, however, has not been without its significant blind spots. Among the chief accelerator programs in existence today include Y Combinator, 500Startups, and TechStars, which boast early-stage tech companies that have gone on to raise millions and billions of dollars in venture capital.
Concern over the missing diversity in many of these initiatives has become a topic of discussion. Over 90 percent of founders graduating from these top-tier programs have been white or Asian males.
Where intentionality challenges bias
The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City points to the low participation rates of women and minorities in competitive accelerator programs as the result of ineffective recruitment activities, selection bias, culture, and overall program design that lacks support for these particular groups.
“In order to create inclusive organizations, it takes deliberate actions on the part of incubator and accelerator managers to recruit women and minority entrepreneurs and to create programs that meet their needs,” states the Creating Inclusive High-Tech Incubators and Accelerators: Strategies to Increase Participation Rates of Women and Minority Entrepreneurs report.
Placemaking
The outliers, programs that have set up shop in cities outside of major markets like San Francisco and New York, are breaking the mold by developing programming and funding with ethnic minorities and women in mind. There are two significant factors which play a role in how these programs foster high numbers of minority founders: location and partnerships with diverse networks.
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The 2014 U.S. Census provides that the highest racial minority populations are in states like Georgia and North Carolina and within cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and Durham. In addition to positioning their programs in environments where there are high concentrations of people of color, programs in these spaces have insights into local talent pools, particularly where there is direct access to historically black colleges and universities and active community leaders building solid relationships with the greater business community.
Partnerships also remain key in effectively building diverse applicant pools of founders where recruitment heavily relies on the quality of the management’s networks and connections.
The Carolina Small Business Development Fund recently partnered with Shaw University to retrofit a collaborative office space as an incubator on campus. In addition to providing workspace for students of color founding companies, entrepreneurs from the surrounding community have direct access to CSBDF’s technical assistance programs, lending products, and statewide networks.
Similarly, Tech Square Labs works in tandem with Atlanta’s workforce development agencies to provide greater access to training for aspiring entrepreneurs and those looking to learn how to code.
Efforts toward parity
Complete data on how these diverse accelerator and incubator programs rate on churning out highly scalable businesses is still yet to be developed. However, understanding the significance in their models to serve underserved populations through strategic partnerships and position outside of major startup hubs is paramount to mapping a trajectory for others to follow.
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