The school's Newark campus is now home to the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, a new public-private partnership that university officials hope will serve as a model for other urban communities. The goal is to help area business owners and prospective entrepreneurs achieve their dreams through seed money and other, non-monetary assistance such as advice and proposal development.
The center's research will focus on four major areas: urban entrepreneurship, which includes job creation; business development and community entrepreneurship; technology entrepreneurship, which includes technology transfer, incubators, technology clusters, leveraging university patents and green business; social entrepreneurship, including social problem-solving, social-purpose business and social investments; and international entrepreneurship, which includes institutions and entrepreneurial activity, small and midsize enterprises and developing nations, and entrepreneurship toward economic development.
One of the center's first initiatives was a partnership with local real-estate capitalist Paul V. Profeta in the creation of the Profeta Urban Investment Foundation at Rutgers Business School. The foundation is a private, not-for-profit equity investment fund designed to revitalize the city of Newark, funded by a $1-million initial contribution from Profeta, who grew up in the Newark area.
"I had wanted, for years, to do something in Newark. As a child, Newark was my city, and I had had various ideas, but this project struck me as something I'm equipped to do because I have experience doing this, and I will do the most for Newark by doing this," Profeta says. "I have an emotional investment in this. Newark is the most meaningful city to me in the nation."
"We had been talking about this idea for a few years," says Dr. dt ogilvie, associate professor of business strategy at the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick and the center's founding director. "It is a perfect fit with the city of Newark, given that the campus is right in the city … It was synchronicity that Paul Profeta was introduced to [Rutgers Business School's new dean] Michael Cooper, and they started talking. Paul wanted to do something to help revitalize Newark. He grew up in the area and wanted to see it restored to the way it was when he was young."
Already, the center and the foundation have awarded seed money to two deserving Newark-based small-business owners to help them nurture their vision and help realize the goal of expanding development in downtown Newark. And as a result, the inhabitants of downtown Newark soon will have two more eateries to enjoy.
"With the economy tightening, it would have been very difficult for me to go to a regular bank and get money [to fund this project]," says John Murray, owner of the Coffee Cave and one of the recipients of the seed money. "The timing could not have been better."
"This is going to help me a lot, because I had already made my selection for a location before I even knew anything about [the program]," says Marisa Blackwell, owner of Cravings A Caterer and the second recipient of the seed money. "They were there to support me in my planning at the right time."
As part of the center's teaching efforts was a new MBA class to help hook up the entrepreneurs with MBA students to help them develop cost analyses, devise business plans and create proposals. Dr. Jeffrey Robinson led the class.
"We're here to unleash the entrepreneurial energy--what's happening just around the corner from this campus," Robinson says. "This is not just about financial capital; it's about putting human capital to the issues of small- and medium-size businesses. It's also about social capital, with the many partners we have," which include the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Office of the Mayor of the City of Newark, the Newark Housing Authority and the Brick City Development Corp., also based in Newark.
"As we increase the business activity in downtown [Newark], we make the streets safer," ogilvie says. "It's a virtuous circle."
