WIBO’s mission is to enable small business owners and budding entrepreneurs from undeserved communities to obtain financial success by starting, operating, and building successful businesses that develop economic power, provide jobs and improve communities.
Since September 2010, Pillsbury United Communities has been offering the 16-week workshop, How to Build a Growing Profitable Business to under-resourced entrepreneurs in the Twin-Cities.
WIBO is a national program based out of New York. Click here for more information.
History of WIBO
The Workshop in Business Opportunities began in 1966 in response to the absence of economic power in the African?American community. The founders, a Midtown marketing consultant and a Harlem attorney, felt that economic, political and social equality could be achieved most quickly and effectively by training and assisting minorities to build growing prosperous businesses. The founders recruited a volunteer faculty of twenty?four business owners from their friends and clients, each one a specialist in one or more aspects of running a successful business, to conduct the classes.
How to Build a Growing Profitable Business has been conducted at 28 locations in 8 states, including workshops for Native Americans in South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona. Over 15,000 individuals have graduated from WIBO workshops and an estimated half of them are operating successful businesses today. In the late 1970s, an exciting trend began to emerge. WIBO graduates who had become successful in business began coming back to see how they could help.
WIBO’s first sixteen?week workshop, How to Build a Growing Profitable Business, opened in Harlem on March 5, 1966. Fifteen students enrolled, fourteen graduated and eleven either started businesses or expanded existing businesses. Word of WIBO’s success quickly spread and within five years, WIBO workshops were being conducted in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, New Jersey and Westchester.
WIBO continues to innovate and provide best practices in entrepreneurial training, education and empowerment. Click here to download a copy of WIBO’s history.
Curriculum Topics
- How to lay a strong foundation for your business
- How to determine and understand your markets
- How to develop customers
- How to promote sales
- How to find and reach people who buy what you have to sell
- How to get the most out of technology
- How to get people to buy from you
- How to use money wisely
- How to hire, train and supervise productive workers
- How to price for greatest profits
- How to make sound financial decisions
- How to control costs and taxes
- How to get and give credit
- How to work with other people’s money
- How to assure lasting success
Click here to download a copy of WIBO’s Curriculum Topics.
Participant Information and Application
Our 16-week workshop is intense and comprehensive. To get the most out of the workshop, it is critical that those who enroll can complete all of the graduation requirements. When you enroll, you will be asked a few questions concerning the following important requirements:
- Experience: You must understand the technical aspects of the business you have chosen. If you are going to open a butcher shop, you must know how to cut meat.
- Commitment: You must attend all classes; arrive on time ready to work; and devote six to twenty additional hours each week to writing your business plan.
- Initiative: If you are not already in business, we are interested in individuals who plan to start a business in next 12 months on a part?time or full?time basis. For those already in business, we are interested in entrepreneurs who are ready to take their business to higher levels.
WIBO maintains a rigorous curriculum and methodology to help you plan, develop, and expand your business. You will be mentored by ten to twenty experienced specialists who are dedicated successful business owners and senior executives.
FEES
The base price for the workbook is $199. WIBO offers a $50 discount to entrepreneurs with household incomes under $50,000 and a $100 discount to those with household incomes under $30,000.
| Total Annual Household Income |
Price |
| Over $50,000 |
$199 |
| $30,000 – $50,000 |
$149 |
| Under $30,000 |
$99 |
Participant Application
To enroll, please download the application and complete all portion. Return completed application to: WIBO – 1200 37TH AVENUE NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55412, OR EMAILED TO [email protected].
