“There is no lack of people within Detroit’s neighborhoods who want to collaborate. April Boyle, Executive Director of BUILD Institute, a network of grass-roots programs that train people to bring their business ideas to life, says more attention and investment needs go to into community entrepreneurship. To date, BUILD has graduated 600 aspiring and experienced community entrepreneurs. BUILD fosters growth for what they call Main Street entrepreneurs– brick and mortars or mom and pop lifestyle passion businesses–that are looking to open businesses in their community.
“We need both the investment paid to tech and high-growth companies but we also need to foster and nurture the community and Main Street entrepreneurs to keep the wealth, to keep our culture, and to preserve Detroit as a unique place,” says Boyle. “The respect for the small business community or the work that we’re doing at that cross section of community entrepreneurship and economic development doesn’t get the respect it deserves because people measure success in dollars, and they don’t understand that this problem took 50 years. It may take hopefully not as long because we don’t have that long to wait, but it’s going to take a long while in order to have that pipeline of workers, and talented, bright innovative workers have to start somewhere.”
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