Community Partnerships – Capital Builders Center and Clifton Scholars Program

“Entrepreneurship is the most important talent in America right now, which is people that have a God-given ability to build something being able to do it,” Jim Clifton, CEO and Chairman of the Clifton Foundation.

Operating under a three-year $1 million grant, the University of the District of Columbia is positioning itself to change the face of entrepreneurship. In an innovative partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the Clifton Foundation and the District of Columbia Public Schools, the first-year college students from the District of Columbia schools are able to compete for coveted scholarships in the Capital Builders Center program for budding entrepreneurs.

Graduating seniors and first-year college students from the District of Columbia attending UDC, Morgan State University, or Bowie State University are eligible to compete for slots at the cutting-edge program designed to increase the number of entrepreneurs coming from individuals attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). 

According to one study from the Center for Global Policy Solutions, despite the progress being made by minority entrepreneurs which contributed 1.3 million jobs to the economy from 2007-2012, our nation “is currently forgoing an estimated 1.1 million businesses owned by people of color because of past and present discrimination in American society,” wrote the study’s author Algernon Austin. “These missing businesses could produce an estimated 9 million more jobs and boost our national income by $300 billion.”

Entrepreneurship is good for our nation and communities and a pathway that not only creates jobs in our communities, it has the ability to shrink the wealth gap from 13 times to only three for business owners. 

This is the potential that the Capital Builder’s Center is looking to maximize by recruiting entrepreneurs from often overlooked communities and developing a pipeline that will feed new businesses and business models from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

The 18-month entrepreneurial training program enhances student’s college experience through boot camps, courses, mentorships, summer apprenticeships, and real-world projects.

“This initiative positions the University of the District of Columbia on the cutting-edge in education, research and outreach focused on identifying and maximizing local talent,” said Ahnna Smith, executive director, Workforce Investment of the District of Columbia. We are opening doors of opportunity for District residents and getting more Washingtonians on pathways to the middle class. This program ensures more DC residents are prepared to participate in the District’s thriving economy and UDC is helping us do just that.”

Powered by the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund and the Clifton Foundation, the hope is that the Capital Builders Center, located on the University of the District of Columbia campus will become a hub for entrepreneurship education for the other 46 HBCU members of the College Fund.

It began as an idea of Dr. William U. Latham, UDC’s Chief Student Development and Success Officer with outreach to Gallup and a funding partnership with the Clifton Foundation, which teaches leaders and researchers how to identify and develop strengths in young people. It’s now an initiative that is poised to have great impact on wealth building and job creation.  

Entrepreneurship is good for our nation and communities and a pathway that not only creates jobs in our communities, it could shrink the wealth gap from 13 times to only three for business owners. 

This is the potential that the Capital Builder’s Center is looking to maximize by recruiting entrepreneurs from often overlooked communities and developing a pipeline that will feed new businesses and business models from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

“This is the entrepreneur’s Julliard for local high potential students that can build organizations of unlimited size,” said Clifton Foundation Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton. He noted that while America has created incredible pipelines for skills relating to athletics, music, or pure academics, it has yet to embed in its schools or communities, those same structures for entrepreneurs.

“Entrepreneurship is the most important talent in America right now, which is people that have a God-given ability to build something being able to do it,” Clifton said. “We are creating a dragnet here in Washington to find them, I don’t think there’s anything more important than doing that.”