Scale Up Milwaukee is now accepting applications for its third cohort of SPARC, a training course for minority- and women-owned businesses in the Milwaukee area.
The five-session SPARC program, launched in 2017, caters to central city businesses with $100,000 to $1 million in revenue, with the aim of teaching practical skills that will help drive rapid business growth. Expert Milwaukee entrepreneurs are commissioned to teach the program.
This cohort will run from September to December, with applications accepted through mid- to late August, said Elizabeth Cizinsky, program manager at Scale Up Milwaukee. About 20 companies will be admitted to the program.
Scale Up Milwaukee is a Greater Milwaukee Committee initiative aimed at driving economic development via entrepreneurship. It offers SPARC in cooperation with the African American Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp., with funding from JPMorgan Chase.
The SPARC program complements Scale Up’s Growth Accelerator program, which accepts businesses with $1 million or more in revenue and also aims to help drive business growth.
“We’ve had wonderful success with helping these companies to grow,” Cizinsky said. “There’s obviously a demand in the community for these types of services and trainings so we wanted to keep offering it.”
