Toronto’s Festival Management Committee offers free training to small business owners

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

Toronto’s FMC Festival Management Committee has secured federal funding to offer a program that will support Black entrepreneurs. The program’s purpose will be to provide free training to help small business owners increase their entrepreneurial skills, and be successful in their businesses. “We are focusing our program on the festival and its related business.” The FMC hopes that this initiative will be of interest to the small business owners involved in the festival.

The festival’s goal is to have 120 people complete the program.

The topics include:

• Money management
• Technology solutions and digital strategies
• Business structure and planning
• How to grow your business
• Funding opportunities
• Vendor and customer relationship management

Courses are conveniently delivered online for 1.5 hours per week for four weeks. Two courses will be 1.5 hours per week for four weeks.

Here are some of what the program provides:

• Lectures, workshops, and mentorship on eight (8) key business disciplines

• Internships for the selected number of participants
• Practical solution case studies to common business problems
• Access to business advisors
• Certificate of Completion from George Brown College

I spoke with the Chair of FMC Laverne Garcia on how things are progressing with this three-year progressive plan, “The federal government put out a call for proposals about supporting Black entrepreneurship with small Black businesses, and so as an organization that has a ton of Black small businesses participating in our event, from the mass people, steel band to the food vendors everybody, the purpose of this grant is to help people have the business skills to take their businesses further.”

This program will be in effect until 2024 and the goal is to train 120 small Black businesses each year so that they become successful business people in the end.

Garcia said some people have small businesses but lack the accounting and marketing skills to take it to the next level and that is where this program comes into play, it’s a way to teach them all that and more in the courses that are offered.

This year’s spots are nearly filled, so it will be wise for would-be participants to start planning next year’s event soon.

“This is a time of rebuilding and transitioning for everyone, people are faced with lots of challenges. I think it’s time for strengthening the stake, making sure you have those great ideas that you wanted to put out, that you’ve got the tools you need in order to execute on them, and this is one way of doing that,” said the FMC Chair.

Garcia told Toronto Caribbean Newspaper that the present situation has caused a lot of small businesses to go under, but she is hopeful there will be a rebound, and she is also hoping to take the festival back on the road again this year.

For more information, please visit https://bbep.ca/