The Presidents’ Council, the local Black chamber of commerce, wants to hear from Black-owned businesses in Greater Cleveland regarding the challenges these entrepreneurs face.

The organization is conducting an online survey through March 31. Black business owners can take the survey by clicking on this link:  https://bit.ly/tpcsurveysgr   

The Presidents’ Council wants companies no matter the size – from a one-person operation to one with a few hundred employees or more – to take the survey. 

(Other businesses owners are not prohibited from taking the survey, but the emphasis is on Black-owned businesses. Survey-takers are asked their race.)

“The goal behind the survey is to gather the information and see what barriers and hurdles these businesses are running into that’s stopping growth,” said Anthony Steele, the council’s director of sales and marketing. “We want to help. We don’t want to just take the information and be like, ‘That’s interesting. Let’s just put it in a drawer.’”

With a clearer picture about the challenges Black-owned businesses in Greater Cleveland face, the President’s Council hopes to pinpoint ways to advocate for these businesses, help connect them to services and resources and potentially  create programs to address some of the hurdles these entrepreneurs face, he said. 

“We are the engine to make sure Black businesses win,” Steele said of the organization’s mission. 

Black-owned businesses have difficulty getting loans, research shows

Research shows that Black businesses face obstacles that their white counterparts often don’t. Getting business loans is one of them. Only 32% of Black-owned businesses are fully approved for the financing they seek, while 56% of white-owned businesses are, according to the Alliance for Entrepreneurial Equity’s 2024 State of Black Business report. Forty percent of Black-owned businesses are denied loans, lines of credit and cash advantages, while only 18% of white-owned businesses are, the report found. The alliance is a partnership between theNational Urban League and think tank Third Way.

The percentage of Black-owned businesses in the United States is low in comparison to African-Americans’ share of the population, the Pew Research Center found in a 2025 report. While Black Americans are 14.2% of the total U.S. population, they only owned about 3% of businesses in 2022. About 70% of these businesses had between one and nine employees. Only 3% had at least 50 workers.

When the National Urban League held its national conference in Cleveland last July, the focus was on how the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and other Trump administration policies are harming Black Americans. These efforts have included curtailing or eliminating programs designed to help minority-owned businesses, including programs that increase their chances of landing government contracts.

The survey asks questions about business size, revenue and industry. It also asks questions about barriers limiting growth. They include access to capital, cash flow and hiring/people management.   

Since the survey began circulating several days ago, Steele said some entrepreneurs have contacted the organization to discuss their challenges and potential solutions. Gaining access to capital has been a huge barrier, they have said. Entrepreneurs are also interested in being part of “shared resources” efforts involving several small businesses. This collaborative model allows businesses to cut costs by pooling assets such as office space, equipment and even staff.

The survey will offer the opportunity to analyze some of the issues that have come up in these conversations, Steele said.

“It’s about just getting a better understanding,” he said. “You could be a long-term business that’s been around, and now you’re running into different hurdles that are stopping your growth. Or you could be a new business that’s up and coming, and you’re trying to learn to get to that point where you could be in the game for years.”