Forty years ago the Nixon Administration created the Opportunity Funding Cooperation, an organization designed to help close the economic disparity gap between White and Blacks in America.
While the Black community has improved its economic conditions since the OFC’s founding, significant disparities in education, land holdings, employment and business earnings still exist.
Students, business leaders, and scholars worked to sustain the mission of closing this gap by convening over the weekend in Atlanta for the organization’s 10th annual Business Plan Competition.
The competition “prepares our students and helps them become entrepreneurs in future business ventures,” said OFC President Sharon Pratt, former mayor of Washington, D.C.
During the business plan challenge, teams from historically Black colleges and universities presented business plans to a panel of judges and competed for monetary awards.
Pratt, who joined the OFC board five years ago as a judge, said the business plan challenge is important because it is an “affirmation of students’ own talent” and because it gives students access to the cooperate business and banking community.
Fayetteville State University won first place in this year’s challenge, earning $15,000. The university won the event in 2005, 2007 and 2008, making it the only school to win multiple first-place distinctions since the competition began in 2000.
