Higher Purpose Co. Guides Black Entrepreneurs to Resources in Mississippi Delta and Beyond

CLARKSDALE, Miss.—As a high-school scholar, Tim Lampkin would greet visitors as they entered the again room of Visionz Pictures Studio, a enterprise inside an workplace constructing on Desoto Avenue in Clarksdale, Miss. After the photographer completed snapping a large number of photographs, Lampkin would escort shoppers from the room cluttered with lights, digital cameras, inexperienced screens and props to his entrance workplace.

As soon as seated, the 16-year-old would add and pull up the brand new photographs on his pc display, viewing every pose with the shoppers and channeling his entrepreneurial spirit to promote them on one of many studio’s pictures packages.

“We had been approach forward of our time,” Lampkin informed the Mississippi Free Press when recounting his time working within the enterprise funded by way of a youth entrepreneurship grant from the Mid-South Delta Management program. “Individuals take common photos now, they usually transpose the background—principally PhotoShop—however we had been doing this in 2003. We had the expertise to edit and print photos in actual time. I used to be the youth gross sales supervisor. That was my first actual entrepreneurial enterprise.”

A couple of blocks away from the constructing that after housed the enterprise that gave Lampkin his first firsthand expertise in enterprise administration stands the brick constructing the place he opened the Increased Function Hub nearly 20 years later. Lampkin, whose group, Increased Function Co., bought the previous furnishings retailer in 2019, plans to make use of the house and adjoining Greyhound bus-repair station to accommodate the corporate’s new $3-million enterprise.

“This shall be a regional neighborhood work hub,” he stated partially three of a video miniseries that Increased Function Co. created in partnership with Third and Marvel Manufacturing Home to spotlight Black entrepreneurs, artists and farmers in Mississippi. “We’re packing in so many facilities that can have the ability to serve the neighborhood.”

The Increased Function Hub will home a meals corridor, a artistic learning-lab retail retailer and the North Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

“We consider in doing a variety of issues in Clarksdale first earlier than we develop to different components of the state,” Lampkin stated. “That’s important for us to deal with a number of the challenges because it pertains to crime and the native financial system. We see this as an answer to make it possible for native (entrepreneurs) really feel supported and have tangible sources as they’re rising their enterprise or aspiring to turn out to be enterprise house owners.”

‘Creating Generational Influence’

In 2015, Lampkin was working at a neighborhood financial institution as a community-development officer when he observed that Black-owned companies weren’t receiving the help he believed they wanted to be extra profitable. For Lampkin, this commentary highlighted a difficulty that was notably true within the Mississippi Delta, which is predominantly African American.

After researching different areas, he created a mannequin that will help native Black entrepreneurs and introduced it to the financial institution’s management. They elected to not implement this system and as a substitute inspired him to tackle one other mission. Lampkin determined to resign from his place on the financial institution, and inside months he based his personal group.

“What I introduced to (the financial institution) was (what grew to become) the preliminary blueprint for Increased Function Co.,” Lampkin stated. “I used to be in a position to develop that due to the expertise I had working at Mississippi Valley State College, my MBA (which he obtained from Delta State College), the work that I had completed on the public library and the neighborhood work that I had completed.”

“(I) was able to do one thing completely different,” Lampkin added. “I took this idea of what we do as a corporation, which is supporting Black entrepreneurs, farmers and artists in getting funding, training and advising.”

Launched in 2016, Increased Function Co. (130 Desoto Ave., Clarksdale), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, offers business-centric academic and advisory companies, in addition to month-to-month conferences with visitor audio system, useful resource emails, cohort studying applications and funding to Black companies throughout the state who’re members of the group. The corporate has grown from serving Clarksdale residents to enterprise house owners within the Delta and different areas within the South, amassing greater than 500 members thus far.

HPC has a statewide membership for Black-owned companies. The membership is free and contains month-to-month membership conferences with visitor audio system and a month-to-month e mail that relays out there sources for entrepreneurs. Members are additionally eligible to use for the Increased Function Enterprise Academy, a cohort that locations enterprise house owners collectively to attach with each other and to share ideas for enhancing their companies.

In early June, the group hosted its second Legacy, Function, Success: Males’s Entrepreneurship Summit. The free, one-day occasion featured nationally acknowledged audio system from throughout the nation in various fields. Greater than 75 attendees had the chance to take part in classes on enterprise funding, branding and expertise.

“We thought it was important to create one thing that will converse to our total group but in addition one thing that will create generational influence,” Lampkin stated.

‘Not a One-(and)-Accomplished’

Oni Omoregie, HPC’s enterprise funding and advising coordinator, moderated a session titled “Mississippi Made,” whereas Phillip Rollins, proprietor of OffBeat Jackson, and Mario Watkins, proprietor of W8 Lounge and Snap Health in Indianola, Miss., spoke within the breakout session about entrepreneurship alternatives and challenges within the state.

The boys talked about how being an entrepreneur has affected them and the way they’ve performed themselves in enterprise. “(They talked about) the most important victories they confronted, what have been the most important challenges they confronted, how they’ve been part of their native communities and racial challenges that they’ve confronted as they’ve been entrepreneurs,” Omoregie stated.

Omoregie observes lots of the challenges firsthand as he meets with HBC members to assist them safe funding for his or her companies.

“The most important subject that I’ve seen based mostly on my one-on-one conferences with members from HBC is inadequate credit score and in addition a lack of understanding,” Omoregie, who’s presently working to acquire a doctorate in public coverage and administration from Jackson State College, stated. “They’re attempting to know: What’s the easiest way to get began with it, (and) what’s the easiest way to construct credit score? These are the primary points that they’ve been working into.”

Enterprise house owners underneath the HPC umbrella obtain sources and construct expertise to assist them each start and develop their companies. Omoregie examines enterprise plans, helps enterprise house owners kind short-term and long-term targets and speaks with house owners to find out their monetary outlooks. He presents weekly, biweekly and month-to-month conferences.

“It isn’t a one-thing-and-you’re-done (deal),” he stated of the HPC shoppers. “Members at HBC have just about limitless entry to me.” If house owners need assistance, he stated, “I’m only a name or a textual content or an e mail (away).”

Since November 2019, HPC has deployed over $1 billion to Black-owned companies by way of a mix of grants, loans, mortgage ensures and particular person improvement accounts.

‘Past the Delta’

HPC’s attain has already expanded exterior the Delta, and because the group grows, Lampkin hopes to see its greater influence throughout the state. Along with the Increased Function Hub in Clarksdale, HPC is opening places of work in Jackson and different components of the state and growing workers in its current places of work. Along with the lads’s summit, additionally they hosted their seventh girls’s entrepreneurship summit and partnered with the Two Mississippi Museums to host an entrepreneurship truthful in live performance with the opening of The Negro Motorist Inexperienced Guide Exhibit.

As HPC grows, Lampkin hopes to create a collective neighborhood of Black entrepreneurs, farmers and artists throughout the state. His perception is that that is the important thing to creating a greater financial system throughout the Delta and the state.

“I take a look at what I do as an entrepreneur not as, ‘How do I make some huge cash?’ however ‘How many individuals can I serve?” Lampkin stated. “For me that’s the driving power round why I present up each day to do that work.”

The bigger Increased Function Hub is projected to open in 2023. For extra data on Increased Function Co.’s sources, companies and applications, go to higherpurposeco.org.