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It is challenging to look back at more than ten years of experiences and try to sum them up in a few neat paragraphs. However, that task is made easier by the fact that we at the Institute now have a much clearer understanding about who we are and what our mission is than when we began.
First of all, as our name says, we are an "institute." We chose to be an "institute" because by definition an institute promotes the welfare of a particular group and serves as a technical and professional authority in its specialized field. That's exactly what we are - advocates and skilled professionals offering services and technical assistance to low-wealth sections of North Carolina. And we are determined to be the best anywhere.
Our goal is to build assets in minority and low-resource communities, and we employ at least three important strategies:
- Providing balanced data and information which improve opportunities to make informed decisions about limited-resource business ventures, and creating successful partnerships between minority and women-owned businesses and both the public and private sectors.
- Creating a central source for quality management and technical assistance to minority businesses and entrepreneurial initiatives in low-resource communities.
- Engaging the historically minority universities in public and private partnerships to build a quality labor force in low-wealth sectors of the population - a labor force which responds to market-driven needs and whose workers have skills which are readily transferable.
We are pleased that the Institute's profile has risen steadily because it means that the people we are in business to serve can find us more easily. For example, minority entrepreneurs who have reached critical points in the development of their businesses and desperately need the Institute's consulting services increasingly are finding their way to our door.
We have strong partners who are helping create a seamless web of services. In our building alone, talented professionals from our staff as well as the North Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations, the North Carolina Community Development Initiative, North Carolina Minority Support Center, and the Legislative Black Caucus interact daily, refining their individual areas of expertness, planning joint projects and benefiting from each other's ideas and specialized resources.
People are amazed by the high degree of cooperation in North Carolina. The General Assembly provides vital funding. Foundations help launch and support programs. Colleges and universities participate in dozens of ways. Corporations provide grants, make their top executives available as resources, donate office space and furnishings, and forge economic development partnerships.
We at the Institute conduct in-depth research, provide consulting services to selected emerging businesses, provide training in management and other skills, do matchmaking between minority suppliers and companies which need their services, and much more.
Our vision must be broad. We must reinvest in both our inner cities and the vast rural areas of North Carolina and embrace strategies which create sustainable economic development.
At the heart of many problems which continue to confound us is the creation and availability of quality jobs for the great cross section of our citizens. Jobs - good-paying jobs - allow people to buy houses and increase the tax base, raise their standard of living, meet their aspirations and those of their children, and become more active and socially responsible citizens. Key to creating such jobs is building the capacity of businesses owned by women and minorities so they become self-sufficient, enhance the asset base of their communities and develop the capacity to give back to their communities. | 
