Entrepreneurs Need More Than Just Ideas

School Plans to Teach Business Basics

Southeastern University President Charlene Drew Jarvis says, "We see entrepreneurship as a way to strengthen entire communities." (Larry Morris -- The Washington Post)

Pamela Glover wants to start a business. The 31-year-old resident of Southeast Washington imagines buying apartment buildings in her neighborhood and opening day care centers in them.

It's the kind of service, she said, that would create jobs in the neighborhood and provide a much-needed service for residents entering the workforce: housing and child care in close proximity.

What Glover lacks is detailed knowledge of how to do it. She knows how she would set up the business's Web site and computer systems; she works now as a systems analyst with a Navy contractor. But Glover has no background in preparing a business plan, arranging financing or marketing.

She intends to fill those gaps in her knowledge by taking classes in entrepreneurship at Southeastern University, part of a new initiative at the school that aims to help fix the interlocking problems of poverty and unemployment in some of the District's most troubled neighborhoods.

"There are people who have entrepreneurship in their DNA but may not have the information they need to act on it," said Charlene Drew Jarvis, the president of Southeastern. "We see this as a way of lifting all boats. We see entrepreneurship as a way to strengthen entire communities."

Southeastern, which celebrated its 125th anniversary, launched the entrepreneurship program at a dinner Wednesday night. Southeastern is a private school that has long focused on teaching business and other skills to its 1,000 students, who are mostly black and District residents.

It is located in Southwest Washington. Its name comes not from its location within the city, but because it was founded by the Young Men's Christian Association in the 19th century to serve the southeastern United States.

The school has offered a series of short, free seminars this fall, and beginning in January will offer a variety of courses and certificates in different elements of entrepreneurship.

Other local schools, including George Mason University, the University of Maryland and Howard University, have programs focusing on entrepreneurship to varying degrees. Southeastern officials said its program is geared more toward the basics of launching a small business than the others. Rather than studying theories of how businesses grow or how to deal with venture capitalists, Southeastern students learn how to balance the books of a lawn-care business or how to recruit employees.

Southeastern officials said their students are overwhelmingly from the District and are trying to launch businesses in the city. The program will encourage business owners to return to the school for advice and additional courses to help them run their businesses.