Meet the 2020 Baltimore Mayoral Candidate Shelia Dixon

A Dixon administration would understand that a key to healing Baltimore is having a healthy and strong Black-owned business community. The truth is, I want Baltimore to be a national model for Black Business. From the beauty salons to the barbershops to our cleaners, tailors, accountants, lawyers, funeral homes, construction companies and our incredible selection of Black restaurants—these businesses are most likely to hire Black people in Baltimore. Hence, we have developed a plan to help better position Black businesses to grow stronger, to improve their credit worthiness, and to increase their access to capital and contracts.

• Establishing a Black Business Czar who will work in tandem with the City’s MBE Office, but will have a specific task of coordinating Baltimore’s Black owned businesses and their respective trade associations and related organizations. The Czar will handle reporting for all City agencies. Each month, we need to see progress reports on what Black businesses have gotten contracts with the City of Baltimore. The Czar will coordinate Black Business efforts with other cities with strong Black populations, beginning in the region with Washington, D.C., Prince George’s County, Philadelphia and New York. Also, the Czar will also actively strive to bring national Black business events to Baltimore.

• Strengthening/building Black incubators, including the Small Business Resource Center. We need a mechanism put in place to provide Black owned businesses with back office support. If you run a small business, you know that it is one thing to do the actual work, but then there is the accounting, the taxes, the licenses and insurance. Businesses need the necessary technical support that can quell their invoicing or sales report needs, for example, so that they can better focus on what they do best.

• Better coordinating relationships and partnerships with Baltimore’s academic institutions, including Baltimore City Community College, such that these businesses can sharpen up on their skills and learn some new ones. Johns Hopkins, UB, the University of Maryland, Loyola, Morgan, Coppin, Towson – we are blessed with some of the finest institutions in the nation and it is high time we better utilize their expertise to help strengthen our business owners and their employees.

• Credit Worthiness and Bonding. Ask any Black contractor and they will tell you that it is often quite difficult to either get a line of credit or to extend one’s line of credit. However, we can create through legislation and other opportunities that help our subcontractors grow their own credit lines. This way, down the road – they can begin to bid on larger projects. Typically, the primes benefit. We need to find a way to help our subs become more empowered with a growing line of credit. It definitely makes a difference. The same goes for bonding. Yes, we want our business owners to develop their credit worthiness, but we also want their businesses to grow, too. Hence, we need to create an environment where subs can grow their businesses’ financial health and their capacity.

• Youth Entrepreneurship. Baltimore’s youth are some of the most creative young people found anywhere in the world. As we help build our Black businesses, we cannot forget to also have a youth component. It is important to foster an environment for youth to learn business practices and financial literacy and introducing them to skills related to management and leadership.