The dozen or so blocks of the Lincoln Park Craft Business District, in western Duluth, are tucked into a pocket hemmed in by elevated highways from the middle of the last century, near the edge of Lake Superior. In the past several years, 40 or so new businesses, including several manufacturers, have emerged or located in the district. These include soft goods manufacturers, clothiers, a craft brewery, and several food producers. In addition to the burgeoning retail presence, many of the businesses sell online and abroad, creating an important export economy for Duluth.
All of this has made Lincoln Park one of UMA’s favorite examples of how a city can support small-scale manufacturers as an important part of its economic development and commercial corridor strategies. In addition to a city-run loan program that helped business owners cover some of the costs of rehabilitating buildings, non-profit partners like LISC Duluthhave also contributed by providing lending capital and technical assistance to business owners.
The district’s success has also made it a favorite of locals and visitors alike, including The Atlantic’s James Fallows and his wife who included a profile of Lincoln Park in their recent book Our Townsm and then discussed it in a CBS Sunday Morning story. Among the parade of visitors checking out Lincoln Park’s craft business scene was one of LISC Duluth’s local funders, the McKnight Foundation. “After the tour, the Foundation observed that there were few, if any, people of color running the businesses in the district,” says Lars Kuehnow, who is responsible for leading LISC Duluth’s commercial revitalization efforts. “It was an epiphany for us in the midst of a lot of success.”
McKnight Foundation posed the challenge to LISC Duluth and its partners to address the race gap.
Kuehnow, who spent time working in a regional CDFI before joining LISC, anticipated that an important part of the challenge to getting more entrepreneurs of color off the ground was in technical assistance and accessing start-up capital. He worked in the community to convene a group of entrepreneurs of color and, with their input, brought the incubation curriculum of Creative Startups to Duluth. Of nearly two dozen business owners who have entered the incubator, 40 percent were from underrepresented communities. “Given that Duluth's people of color population is 12 percent, we are really proud to have such a diverse group of cohort members participating,” Kuehnow says.
The Northwest Area Foundation, based in St. Paul, noticed LISC Duluth’s efforts to close the race gap and has stepped in with support to help them go further with African American and Native American entrepreneurs, in particular. The foundation has offered LISC DULUTH a one-year planning grant to develop an approach to engaging nonwhite communities further in both entrepreneurship and employment as pathways to economic mobility. LISC Duluth anticipates receiving funding for a subsequent two-year implementation grant.
And the timing couldn’t be better. In addition to the financial resources to help LISC Duluth make its craft business district an inclusive one, Kuehnow will get to tap into the community of practice that is the Pathways to Patient Capital cohort. "I was incredibly impressed by the expertise of my fellow participants. We all share similar challenges. Prior to convening with them, I felt our task was possible. Now, I know there is a solution and it will come from our work."
This case study was co-authored by Mark Foggin and Johnny Magdaleno and published in 2020 as part of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance’s “Forging Fairness: How community-based lenders are centering both inclusion and manufacturing to promote equity [link to report].” This report highlights the work of practitioners in UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital cohort and how these leaders are helping entrepreneurs of color – including makers and manufacturers – access to the capital and know-how they need to realize their business ideas and plans at scale.