Mission and history

Mission: The Albany Business League fosters the growth, creation, and development of successful business enterprises owned, operated and managed by African Americans and people of African descent in metro Albany and Dougherty Co.

Albany Business League will seek to provide economic empowerment and business development opportunities for African Americans and people of African descent throughout the metropolitan Albany area with specific emphasis on the development of Black-owned businesses.

The Albany Business League is a strong force for positive growth in Albany. It serves as one voice for many small business persons, using their collective power to influence the course of events politically and socially at all levels including government, business, and civic communities. As challenges present themselves to the entrepreneur, the Albany Business League continues to meet them head-on.

The long-term goal of the Albany Business League is to end the disfranchisement of the vast majority of African Americans living in Albany, GA.

HISTORY

Since 2015, the Albany Business league has served as a hub for minority owned businesses to network, share resources and empower each other. In the first year of operation, we held several events to publicize the organization and to build a database of business owners and entrepreneurs in the community. We held a State of Black Albany Forum where we assembled a panel of experts to discuss the problems that impact African Americans in our community. Topics ranged from health rates to poverty rates to education to politics and much more. All discussions had the same result, there were no immediate solutions, but a clearly demonstrated need for an organization to take the lead in organizing strategic efforts towards solutions. After the forum, ABL began holding Night of Networking events to engage small business owners and entrepreneurs in the community. These events served several purposes: to create opportunities for networking, to hold focus groups to find out more regarding where the greatest needs were for entrepreneurs of color and to begin a database of small business owners in with to serve.

More importantly, we found through our research that there are no major organizations that celebrate diversity and champion inclusion in our community. There was a clear need for cultural events and yes, events for women. Where in other major cities, there are women’s conferences, women’s luncheons, women’s magazines, there was a lack of these entities in our area. So, we launched the Women’s Entrepreneurship Forum in November of 2015 to a standing room only crowd of women. This event, hosted with our partner Albany State University, showcased an array of women entrepreneurs who wanted to see more events like this in the city. Topics on social entrepreneurship, women in tech, starting a business and more were explored.

There was also a need for people to locate minority owned businesses in the community. People of all colors expressed a desire to support minority owned businesses but did not always know where they were and which were actually minority owned. In the fall of 2016, a publication called In the Black Magazine and Business Directory was created. The publication, produced by the BAM Agency serves as a lifestyle magazine and Black owned business directory.

While the Albany Business league focuses primarily on the small business, the belief is that the key to economic empowerment and ending the disenfranchisement of so many people living in Albany, GA lies in self-sufficiency through business ownership and entrepreneurship. Through our efforts, we hope to create an environment where minority owned businesses can thrive and young people of color have the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship and how to change the communities they live in.

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