Unique Business Plan Competition Offers Scholarship Dollars For Students at Historical Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU)

DETROIT, Mich., November, 2004 – Ford Motor Company continues its pioneering efforts to increase the success of African American entrepreneurs with the HBCU Business Classic, a business competition for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including those HBCU in New York.

The HBCU Business Classic allows all HBCU students to put their classroom knowledge to test in a real-world business plan competition. Winners will receive a total of $100,000 in scholarships for their respective teams and schools.

“Ford continues to recognize a need in the Black business community to educate and develop the next generation of Black entrepreneurs,” said Tony Brown, senior vice president, Global Purchasing, Ford Motor Company. “This competition will empower HBCU students to achieve personal wealth, and have a residual effect of building communities through economic development, one of the core goals of Ford Motor Company since its inception.”



Small businesses represent 99 percent of all businesses in the U.S. and create 75 percent of the new jobs. Overall, minority owned small firms are growing at 30 percent versus 7 percent for all U.S. firms, according to the most recent report from the Commerce Department Census Bureau.

While Blacks are twice as likely as others to start a business, black businesses have been among the least likely to grow or survive – due to the marked lack of educational and support programs that focus on Black entrepreneurship.

Not only do Black businesses struggle harder to survive, blacks also face the larger issue of a wealth gap in the U.S.

“Blacks spend $700 billion annually in the U.S., but less than 7 percent of those dollars return to the Black community,” said George Fraser, founder of one of the largest Black networking conferences, FraserNet, and competition judge. “Blacks control only 2 percent of the nation’s wealth.”



The HBCU Business Classic competition was designed to directly address these issues. HBCUs were selected because they enroll upwards of 370,000 students at 119 different schools and graduate approximately one-third of all Black students annually while representing roughly 3 percent of the nation's overall college population.

The competition is open to all HBCU students nationwide. To enter, individuals or teams of two to five students and a faculty advisor must submit a 10-page business plan via the Ford HBCU Business Web site at Ford HBCU Scholarship. The plans must be comprised of these main elements: type of business, product or service, pricing considerations, target market and competition, and general operations. Ford will also provide all students who participate with a free online subscription to DiversityInc.com.

An advisory panel of SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” will then judge the plans based on the following criteria: overall presentation of the business plan, the viability of its success and overall benefit to the community. The panel will narrow the competition down to five semifinal teams that will advance to the finals. The five finalists will then be judged by a group of prestigious entrepreneurs including: Dave Bing, chairman, The Bing Group; Renee Cottrell-Brown, executive vice president of Pro-Line International; George Fraser, bestselling author and CEO of FraserNet Inc.; Earl “Butch” Graves Jr., president & COO of Earl G. Graves Publishing Company; Earvin “Magic” Johnson, president of Magic Johnson Enterprises; Linda Johnson Rice, president and CEO of Johnson Publishing Company; and Susan L. Taylor, Senior Vice President and Editorial Director of ESSENCE Magazine.

“I’m looking forward to participating in the HBCU Business Classic competition and seeing the latest creative ideas young people are considering when thinking about going into business for themselves,” said Dave Bing.

The competition winners will be chosen at the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) National Conference in Washington, D.C., next April. The first place team will receive $35,000 for personal scholarships and $15,000 for their school. The second and third place teams will receive $20,000 and $15,000 for personal scholarships and $10,000 and $5,000 for their respective schools.

Ford’s Commitment

Ford has a strong track record in creating opportunities for black entrepreneurs, and in turn, helps to address the wealth gap in the Black community.


For more than 40 years, Ford has been a major supporter of the hopes and dreams of HBCU students. In the last five years alone, Ford has given over $10 million to Black colleges and universities.

In June, Ford announced a partnership with Babson College and participating Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to launch the first-ever academic program to focus on Black entrepreneurship. Babson, which is ranked first in entrepreneurship education by U.S. News & World Report (2003), is helping build business curricula, currently focusing on case studies of successful Black entrepreneurs. Ford is also involved in exchange programs between the HBCUs and Babson College faculty, sponsoring symposia that “teach the teachers” how to impart entrepreneurship knowledge.

The Ford Fund is also expanding its Partnership for Advanced Studies (PAS) program for high school students to include HBCUs. The PAS program prepares students for college and careers by combining real-world knowledge and skills with learning opportunities.

Ford Motor Company leads the auto industry in minority auto dealerships, with 345 minority dealers in the U.S. This represents 6.7 percent of Ford’s 5,127 dealerships, the highest percentage of minority dealers of any domestic automaker in the U.S. In 2003, Ford spent more than $3.2 billion in purchases from around 300 minority suppliers, representing 6 percent of the company’s procurement budget.

Supporting Black entrepreneurship makes good business sense. “When we create opportunities for entrepreneurs, they seize those opportunities and bring wealth back to the community,” said George Frame, executive director, Dealer Development, Ford Motor Company. “As that wealth is spread around the community, that’s a winning situation for all involved.”  ¶ 11/18/2004 05:26:00 PM