State award gives Dayton Area Chamber minority partnership mission

The center works to identify and help emerging minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses.

The chamber has experience in this area, having run its Minority Business Partnership across its 14-county service area, a region that overlaps with the 12-county region the state expects the chamber to serve.

The chamber can help businesses with finding a place in supply chains, securing capital and other services, said Chris Kershner, the chamber’s president and chief executive.

Businesses owned by miniorities, women and veterans “have grown in stride throughout the last decade under our Minority Business Partnership programs and collaborations,” Belinda Matthews Stenson, the chamber’s vice president, business inclusion, said in a chamber statement. “Integrating in the MBAC will further strengthen our diverse businesses.”

Jelani Johnson will be regional director of the MBAC.

“We are truly honored to have been selected to host the Minority Business Assistance Center for the next two years,” Johnson said.

Minority, women and veteran-owned businesses “will continue to have an advocate and a partner in the Miami Valley region with the ability to leverage the proven business and personal development resources of the chamber and the support of the Minority Business Partnership with the intention of uplifting our diverse business communities,” he added.

In April, Dayton City Commission members said the city would give up the MBAC the city had hosted for about 45 years after the state made changes requiring the city to provide more staff and funding.

Three of five members of the Dayton City Commission supported the move, saying the chamber was expected to take over the responsibility.

If the chamber had not stepped up to the role, the concern was that the responsbility might have shifted to another region’s MBAC, Kershner said.