Comcast NBCUniversal has given Atlanta’s Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs a one-year, $1 million grant to boost the center’s digital programming platform and create a new speaker series and data science initiative.
The grant is the latest large financial gift to the nonprofit center, also known as RICE, which is dedicated to promoting local Black entrepreneurship. Since August, corporate giants Walmart, Wells Fargo and PayPal have committed more than $3 million to RICE for programming and renovations. RICE has now almost reached its more than $44 million capital campaign goal.
Brittany Saadiq, vice president of development at RICE, said the organization helps its corporate partners fulfill commitments to racial equity, particularly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 made companies look at inclusion through a different lens.
“How can we help them when they’re interested in diverse suppliers?” Saadiq said. “How can we marry their needs alongside our needs as a nonprofit organization to get to an agreement that can benefit our mission and build Black business?”
With the Comcast NBCUniversal grant, RICE is starting up a new business leader speaker series, which is expected to begin in late March or early April. Expansion is planned for Digital RICE programming, which provides online entrepreneurship training to current members and is expected to be available to all entrepreneurs this summer. In addition, plans call for building out a research and data science initiative that will measure the impact of RICE’s programs on businesses.
This is not the first time RICE has received funding from Comcast. In 2021, the communications giant gave the center about $25,000, according to Saadiq.
In 2019, RICE launched a $44.4 million capital campaign (inspired by a Jay-Z album) to grow the center’s physical footprint, provide more programming to its members and increase the number of founders it can serve. Currently the center supports more than 300 entrepreneurs, but Saadiq said they have a goal of serving 1,000 by 2027.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
RICE is about $2 million shy of its goal, which Saadiq anticipates will be reached before the summer.
RICE is housed in the original 54,000-square foot headquarters of H.J. Russell and Company, a pioneering Black-owned construction firm founded in 1952 by the late Herman Russell. Part of the building was completely gutted and reworked to become a place for local Black entrepreneurs to develop and grow their companies.
The next phase of the renovations is currently underway, updating the original lobby and another part of the building that dates back to the 1950s. Eventually, RICE hopes to build an addition to help serve more entrepreneurs and will begin the permitting process this summer, Saadiq said.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Ultimately, Saadiq said the millions that the center is raising will mean that they will be able to have “entrepreneurs, dreamers, innovators, in a new space, over 60-, 70,000-square feet, to be able to be inspired by [H.J. Russell’s] legacy.”
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