Our mission is to enable small business owners and budding entrepreneurs from under-served communities obtain financial success by starting, operating, and building successful businesses that develop economic power, provide jobs and improve communities.

Description:
Founded in 1966 in Harlem, Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO) is a private non-profit organization that provides a 16-week workshop, How to Build a Growing Profitable Business, to those men and women with the drive to become entrepreneurs. The workshop is offered in 9 locations: Downtown Brooklyn, Central Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, Midtown, Harlem, Washington Heights, South Bronx, St. Albans & Yonkers. Other services include: small business coaching, small business seminars and a small business legal clinic. WIBO serves over 500 entrepreneurs each year.

History:
The Workshop in Business Opportunities began in response to the absence of economic power in the African-American community. The founders, a Midtown business owner and a Harlem attorney, believed that economic, political and social equality would be achieved most quickly and effectively by training and assisting minorities to build growing profitable businesses of their own. The founders recruited a volunteer faculty of twenty-four business owners and senior executives, each one a specialist in one or more aspects of running a successful business, to conduct the classes. 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 within a year. Word of WIBO's success quickly spread and within five years, WIBO workshops were running in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, New Jersey and Westchester.

Contact people:

Zahra Amanpour, Program Manager, (212) 684-0854 ext 0543, (email) Victoria Rodriguez, Enrollment Specialist, (212) 684-0854 x0540, (email) Amini Kajunju, Executive Director, (212) 684-0854 x0539, (email)

Address:

55 Exchange Place New York, NY 10005 (See a map)

Directions:

Directions to WIBO's new office: 55 Exchange Place - North East corner of Exchange Place and Broad St. in Lower Manhattan. Entrance on Exchange Place. Across from the NY Stock Exchange, one block from Wall St.   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, J, M, Z,   Walk distance (in minutes): 2 min.