Our Ecosystem
Investment in a Scalable Ecosystem that creates economic equity for communities of color.
To execute on this, Sister Cities Project programs, events and impact, outcomes will be created and measured within an entrepreneurial ecosystem that was based on the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas’ small business and economic development work.
The Bank’s 2018 report by Dell Gines and Rodney Sampson; of Kansas City “Building Entrepreneurship Ecosystems in Communities of Color”, provides a template for meeting the specific needs of small businesses owned by Black females, who face unjust bias barriers at every turn when compared to their White female owned business counterparts. We have incorporated their work to build a scalable entrepreneurship ecosystem model that is expanded to include other segments of the community and that can be replicated through the nation with the mission of closing this gap.
This diagram below illustrates the anchor areas that are critical to building a successful ecosystem that empowers communities of color and where our areas of impact intersect. These broad domains, when functioning well, work interactively to support the development of local entrepreneurs, local youth and residents and together they create synergy in the local community
Sister Cities Project has developed programming that interacts with each of these domains to support a thriving local ecosystem of black female entrepreneurs in Southeast San Diego and City Heights, San Diego. This model will be scaled and replicated as we expand Sister Cities Project through similar communities in the United States and globally.