Operation HOPE and 1MBB are moving like a train, constantly gaining speed, and we’re showing no signs of slowing down. This week, the brothers of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated announced their formal partnership with Operation HOPE’s 1 Million Black Businesses initiative. They have committed to backing, supporting, and standing up 1,000 businesses over the next decade and are in enthusiastic pursuit of that goal.

During the live virtual event which announced the partnership, the international president of Phi Beta Sigma, President Micheal Cristal, explained how spurring entrepreneurship in the Black community is embedded in the very fabric of the organization and has been since its earliest years. The program, which seeks to launch one million Black businesses over the next ten years, aligns with the organization’s purpose, goals, and mandate to help uplift and strengthen Black communities across the nation and help promote the social good of all.

Phi Beta Sigma is the first of the historic and famed Divine 9 Black Greek letter organizations to join our movement. Although they are the first, we are confident and hopeful that they won’t be the last. President Cristal challenged and encouraged other leaders and member organizations of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) to join the 1MBB movement and support it in their own way.

This announcement comes on the heels of our first formal 1MBB partnership with Clark Atlanta University, the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to align themselves with our mission. The trifecta of the Black church, Black institutions of higher education, and Black Greek letter organizations finding value, worth, and alignment with 1MBB tells the importance and gravity of this moment. As a community, we are beginning to shift the paradigm and thinking from a consumer to a producer.

We are ushering in a renaissance of thought and action towards realizing our potential as a community by betting on ourselves and leveraging the economic opportunity afforded to us by the American capitalist system.

While we have great energy around 1MBB, we want to keep the momentum going. We are always welcoming new institutional, educational, religious, community, and business partners in our endeavor to stand up 1 million Black businesses over the next ten years.

To learn more or become an official partner, visit us at hope1mbb.org or email our 1MBB director, Jessica Bergeron, directly at Jessica.bergeron@operationhope.org.

We look forward to you being a part of this community paradigm shift and Third Reconstruction in America

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