The SunTrust Foundation will give a nearly $1 million grant to NCGrowth, an affiliated center of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, to help create new jobs and stimulate transformative development in three high-potential communities in the Carolinas. These business incubators will help startup companies hire local workers in an effort to address issues such as unemployment, underemployment, low wages and significant poverty.
NCGrowth, which is affiliated with UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, will use the $950,000 grant to launch SmartUp programs in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and North Charleston, South Carolina. There are plans to select a third location in the Carolinas in the coming months. The SmartUp program from NCGrowth works to create jobs with equitable opportunities in rural and economically-challenged communities in the Carolinas.
“Through SmartUp, as in all of NCGrowth’s work, we are seeking to radically transform how communities view their role in economic development, from being passengers to becoming drives,” said Mark Little, executive director of the Kenan Institute.
| UNC-CH