Black Women in Business
Harlem’s The Lillian Project Empowers Black Women To Step Into Entrepreneurship
“Our team has seen confidence boosts, business acumen sharpened and more importantly businesses come to life right before us,” said Gina B. Ramcharan, Program Director, The Lillian Project.
Black women are making waves when it comes to business ownership. According to a Nielsen report, there were 1.5 million Black woman majority-owned businesses as of 2015. Despite them being the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the country, the journey to becoming their own bosses is no easy feat. Many women of color face socio-economic barriers that hold them back from stepping into the realm of entrepreneurship. The Lillian Project—a Harlem-based incubator designed to educate and empower budding women entrepreneurs in the community—is looking to change that narrative and level the playing field for low and middle-income Black women when it comes to launching their own ventures.
The initiative—which got its moniker from ; a Black woman who migrated from Mississippi to Harlem in 1901, launched her own culinary business, and flipped her earnings to make a name for herself in real estate—was created by the Harlem Business Alliance. The program—which launched in 2016—is funded by the WK Kellogg Foundation.
The women who are accepted into the incubator undergo 16-weeks of intensive training where they cover topics that include business development, financial literacy and marketing to equip them with the skills and tools needed to bring their vision …
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