Effort to spur entrepreneurs around Century City may see few benefits

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Milwaukee officials want to set aside nearly $20,000 to spur new innovations and business ideas for the city’s 30th Street industrial corridor, but only $5,000 of that would go to actual entrepreneurs.

Moreover, one purpose of the money would be to pursue grants normally reserved for students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin.

On Monday, Milwaukee’s Community and Economic Development Committee recommended the Common Council award $19,600 toward an Innovation Village Lab Idea Challenge grant. The grant would be managed by The Manufacturing Diversity Institute, an organization aimed at fostering industry jobs, innovation and entrepreneurship in under-served communities.

“There are so many people in and around the 30th Street Corridor that have ideas, but those ideas are never cultivated and serviced up, let alone vetted,” Keenen Grenell, executive director of The Manufacturing Diversity Institute, told the committee Monday. “So what we have proposed to do is reach out to individuals with ideas – work with them in terms of a major vetting process.”

Grenell thinks the entrepreneurs who receive money from his organization would ultimately open businesses around Century City. The new ventures, he said, could easily specialize in energy power and control, water supply, the food service industry and advanced manufacturing.

Still, only about a quarter of the money given to the program would actually end up in the hands of entrepreneurs.

“The way that we structured this is very strategic,” Grenell said. “We’re only going to be able to grant five individuals $1,000. It is to take that $1,000 and utilize it towards educational resources within the University of Wisconsin system. They’ll take that thousand dollars and put it towards maybe the entrepreneurship training program that’s with the small business development center in the Grand Avenue Mall … workshops there are between $400 and $600.”

Another option, Grenell said, is “Ideadvance,” a joint project started last summer between the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., a quasi-private state agency that provides grants for various business activities. Ideadvance provides $25,000 toward selected applicants with new business ideas.

With a match from private sources, an additional $50,000 can be had. But only faculty, students or companies licensing technology to UW are eligible for that money.

“So how does an individual in the city of Milwaukee qualify?” Grenell asked. “Well, they can take that $1,000 and maybe get a credit hour and become a student, and they qualify that way for that program.”

“As long they are an enrolled student, as far as I understand, they would be eligible,” said David Linz, associate director of the Center for Technology Commercialization, which the Ideadvance program falls under. “But it is a competitive process, and there are a lot more applications for this than there is money to award. The review committee is set up by WEDC … the reviewers would look at this and say, ‘I wouldn’t use the word sham, but maybe they’d say it’s a contrived situation.'”

Only $5,000 can be given out, Grenell said, because the rest of the money – $14,600 – will be tied up in administration. The likely uses of the leftover amount include vetting possible candidates and a public relations campaign.

“Marketing,” he said. “You got to market, get the word out. And somebody has to facilitate the program. When you go through all that, there ain’t a whole lot left.”

Alderman Ashanti Hamilton, who appeared with Grenell at the committee meeting, said he endorsed the program after originally being uncertain.

“Initially, I was a little skeptical when I heard about the proposal and what they were trying to do,” he told the committee.

Grenell’s request was previously up for consideration in November and January, but delayed for recommendation until Monday.

“I needed to do some background, research. I didn’t have enough information,” Hamilton said after the hearing. “I needed to see what the history was, buy some time, get testimony, find out what was their target. Did it make sense for them to be there?”