Support Forward Cities

Please consider a gift to create equity for every entrepreneur through the work of Forward Cities. Your gift impacts the world-class capacity building, research, learning, and storytelling work Forward Cities does year round.

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Community Navigator

Forward Cities was selected as a grantee for the U.S. Small Business Administration‘s (SBA) Community Navigator Pilot Program aimed at reducing barriers for underserved entrepreneurs and small business owners. We will work in close collaboration with both the City of Durham and Durham County to deploy the nearly $1 million awarded, with the two-year grant period beginning December 1.

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Collaborators in Equitable Ecosystem Building

Forward Cities is fortunate to have a growing number of funding and ecosystem building partners to help us deepen and expand our work.

Meet Our Partners

ESHIP Communities

The ESHIP Communities program is a community-driven approach for building entrepreneurial ecosystems that foster inclusion, relationships, collaboration, and social capital across networks of entrepreneurs and those who support them. The program supports the creation and evaluation of a repeatable, bottom-up approach to building and strengthening entrepreneurial ecosystems.

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Impact Stories

Storytelling is in our DNA. We celebrate the champions and change-makers dedicated to growing and sustaining more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems in their communities and beyond.

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ESHIP Communities’ Entrepreneurs — Exploring Connection, Healing, and Youth Empowerment

By Paulo Gregory, Kena Fuller and Erin Ortigoza
December 17, 2021
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The Black Butterfly Network Launches Comprehensive New Platform to Uplift Baltimore Black Businesses

By Paulo Gregory
November 30, 2021
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What’s Happening Next With ESHIP Communities?

By Megan Shuford
November 22, 2021
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Get in touch!

At Forward Cities, we value collaboration above all and are always interested in finding new partners, exploring new ideas, and forging new ground. Please share how you might like to engage with us as we collectively pursue equity for every entrepreneur.

Let’s connect!

Community Impact

Strengthening a local equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem requires intention, stakeholder alignment, local leadership, timely data, trust-building, authentic community engagement, and an actionable plan that can be invested in and sustained over time. We work with cities to help implement their plans, track their data, amplify emerging stories, and identify public and private resources to sustain this work over time.

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Support the vision

Our work is generously supported by local and national foundations as well as corporations and individuals who share our commitment to fostering more equitable entrepreneurial communities across the country. If you are interested in supporting us directly please click here.  If you’d like to talk further about how you or your organization can best support Forward Cities’ mission please contact us.  Thank you!

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