CalOSBA awards Chapman’s Leatherby Center of Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics a $1 million grant for an Inclusive Innovation Hub
The grant will allow the center to focus on fostering entrepreneurship in underserved communities by drawing in volunteers and mentors. Photo by JACK SUNDBLAD, Staff Photographer
Female founders represent nearly half of all startups, yet women receive less than 3% of the venture capital funding available.
Immigrants are 80% more likely to start a business than their native counterparts.
These are just some of the groups of people to whom the Leatherby Center of Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics at Chapman University strives to give equal opportunity.
This past November, the center was awarded a $1 million grant, which will be dispersed over four years by the California Office of Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA) to establish an Inclusive Innovation Hub.
According to CalOSBA’s website, it launched the Accelerate California Inclusive Innovation Hubs program with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. The programs will accelerate technology and science-based firms in key industry areas with a strong outreach focus on diverse founders, including women and people of color, along with underserved regions.
The center, which first opened in 1995 with a $3 million endowment by Ralph W. Leatherby, has a mission to provide hands-on experience to the next generation of talent, guiding them to launch and scale ventures.
Leatherby Center director Cynthia West hopes the grant will draw in more volunteers, mentors and corporate sponsors to support its programs.
“Inclusivity and equity are very important to me,” West told The Panther. “When I was a student, I fought for the University of California Regents to add a gender and ethnic studies requirement to the bachelor's degree alongside hundreds of other students, so this is a cause near and dear to my heart. As a co-founder of four tech startups, I was often the only woman on the leadership team. Helping ameliorate these imbalances is core to my experiences.”
“Inclusivity and equity are very important to me. When I was a student, I fought for the University of California Regents to add a gender and ethnic studies requirement to the bachelor’s degree alongside hundreds of other students, so this is a cause near and dear to my heart. As a co-founder of four tech startups, I was often the only woman on the leadership team. Helping ameliorate these imbalances is core to my experiences.”
The $1 million grant will also directly support students in entrepreneurship degree programs at Chapman.
Senior business administration major Aylo Corshen, president of the newly minted Chapman Entrepreneurship Organization, hopes the grant will allow for a surge in student-led initiatives and startups.
“With this grant, the Leatherby Center will have the resources to better support our underserved entrepreneurs at Chapman and the greater Orange County,” Corshen said. “For our students, this means enhanced guidance and coaching programs will be available at the center.”
Leatherby Center staff and students believe the university will start seeing more success stories come out of the center due to the grant. Their hope is that this will ultimately lead to the entrepreneurship emphasis gaining even greater recognition within the growing Argyros College of Business and Economics.
According to West, the grant has made a women’s workforce development program with the Brea Chamber of Commerce possible. The program, called the Women Rising Leadership Academy, currently has 77 women and serves to help mid-career women discover what is next for them.
“I am honored and humbled to be in a position to give back to others,” West said. “This grant will allow the Leatherby Center to open our doors to the wider community in Orange County, not just Chapman students, staff and alumni.”
“I am honored and humbled to be in a position to give back to others. This grant will allow the Leatherby Center to open our doors to the wider community in Orange County, not just Chapman students, staff and alumni.”