New report identifies challenges facing black entrepreneurs in Alberta

A new report sheds light on the experiences and challenges of black entrepreneurs in the state.

The State of Black Entrepreneurs in Alberta announced Monday details of findings from a joint study between the Africa Center and the University of Alberta’s Pan African Collaboration for Excellence (PACE).

It is intended as a means of filling knowledge gaps in understanding local Black entrepreneurship, where data are scarce or non-existent.

PACE director and principal investigator Philomena Okeke-Ihejirika said it was the systemic inequalities faced by black people that underscore many of the findings.

“Racing is very important. We need to start collecting that data to know what’s going on.”

Twelve people were interviewed in the first phase, and questionnaires were collected from 256 participants in the second phase to provide a snapshot of the experiences of black entrepreneurs. His 88% of participants were immigrants from Africa or the children of immigrants from Africa.

A majority of respondents felt that racial attitudes toward black people impacted their ability to succeed.

Okeke-Ihejirika said one of the ideas supported by the research is that black entrepreneurs have limited social capital networks to start their businesses.

“People who start businesses in our community do not have grandfathers and grandmothers who left their fortunes.”

financial support

Participants started businesses in a variety of industries, from retail to agriculture. The most commonly reported were manufacturing (17.2%), services (16.8%) and construction (12.9%). The most common reason for starting a business was to increase personal/family wealth.

Okeke-Ihejirika said he was surprised that many people didn’t even approach the bank to correct course. The most common source of funding was personal savings (50.9%), followed by family savings (46.6%) and credit cards (39.2%).

“That’s unacceptable. It doesn’t really make the business thrive,” said Okeke Ihejirika.

For both early and current challenges, the most common responses were lack of credit and loan availability and labor availability and cost.

training and education

Only 22% of participants said they had received any training or education to start, run or manage a business.

One of the recommendations from the report was that organizations that help black entrepreneurs should encourage them to take financial awareness courses when starting a business.

Black entrepreneurs are also strongly encouraged to receive training in both the technical and soft skills of running a business.

“I wouldn’t call it financial literacy because I think it’s an insult to marginalized people.”

Africa Center Executive Director Sharif Haji said another concern identified in the report concerns the narrow customer base. According to the report, only 51% of respondents identified the general public as their customer base, with some companies targeting only Black customers.

“If you have a business and your customer base is small and you’re not looking to grow it, it’s probably going to stay stagnant and you won’t be able to thrive.

The study, he says, will help fill gaps in data parsing race. The study is the first of its kind in Alberta.

Haji said he hopes the findings will help inform the Center’s future programs and serve as inspiration for policy makers.

For more stories about the Black Canadian experience, from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community, check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.