Cerise Cohee always knew she wanted to own her own business.
As a teenager, Cohee participated in the Minority Youth Entrepreneurship Program. She said the program laid the solid foundation for her company, Rise Marketing, which focuses on promoting small minority-owned businesses.
“The program helped me understand business and understand what business would work for me,” the 31-year-old Cohee said as she handed out postcards to promote a client’s North County boutique.
“Sales has always been a part of me, and I could never sit in an office all day.”
Cohee is among 700 alumni of the entrepreneurship program who are invited to the “MYEP Entrepreneurship Panel and Benefit Reception” this month. They will meet with program founders and leading African-American entrepreneurs to discuss the program’s future and the power of the alumni’s philanthropy, said Cohee.
MYEP has hired her to create and implement its alumni relations campaign. Each of the alumni will be asked to donate $10 a month to the program for the rest of his or her life to build an endowment.
David L. Steward, founder and chairman of World Wide Technology Inc., suggested contacting the alumni, said Sandra Marks, executive director of MYEP. Steward’s son and daughter participated in the program and are entrepreneurs, Marks said. Other entrepreneurs seek out the program for their children to attend.
Program alumni are now doctors, attorneys and entrepreneurs, among other professions, she said.
Marks said when Paul Miller, one of the program founders, died in 2005, she and others began to think about the program’s future. “It was an eye-opener,” she said. “We need our alumni to take over.”
Perhaps one day, the alumni will able to give as founder Ron Thompson did. For 20 years, Thompson gave $50,000 a year to the program, Marks said. “He invested personally in these kids,” Marks said. “They are going to be that next set of millionaires.”
Leaders within the program also want to talk to alumni about their futures.
“We want our alumni to have a strategy of what their lives will look like when they are 50,” Marks said.
In addition to the alumni’s philanthropy, business owners and program founders will also discuss how entrepreneurs can benefit from the economic downturn.
Marks said some alumni have called her fearful about potential downsizing and layoffs. “Entrepreneurs have thrived in times like these,” Marks said. “Companies need entrepreneurs to do the work of people laid off.”
Business owners will also discuss manufacturing as a business option during the benefit reception. Cohee said this is an example of MYEP leaders still offering support and guidance to program participants.
Cohee, who officially began Rise Marketing this year, looks forward to giving back to the program. “It’s a good thing, because it benefited me and I would like more people to go through it and learn how to be an entrepreneur,” Cohee said.
Cohee said the program is realistic and rigorous. “It puts that burn inside of you. You are constantly pulled,” Cohee said.
During the program, teams of students must work together to create a business plan. Cohee’s team created a business plan for a toy manufacturing company. Cohee’s task was the marketing aspect of the business plan. They presented the plan before a panel of entrepreneurs.
“When you stand in front of the class and present, they strip you down,” she said. “They ask you some hard questions, but they know the challenges we will face as business owners.”
The program began in 1987 to acquaint talented African-American high school students of all socio-economic backgrounds with entrepreneurship and to expose them to million-dollar businesses that African Americans owned. Through a six-week summer program taught at Washington University, students participate in academic sessions, personal development workshops and attend entrepreneurial field trips to meet local entrepreneurs and learn from their success.
Each Friday, the students will be in classes with Washington University students earning their Masters in Business Administration. The program is held from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and students receive a stipend for their participation. The program, which costs $35,000 annually for 25 students, will begin June 28-August 7. No slots are available for this year.
“You have to expose them early and then help them prepare for it,” Marks said.
Marks, who owns Marks and Associates, said the entrepreneurship program became a client and the founders mentored her. Now she mentors the graduates of the program.
Cohee has Marks and Associates as a client. “This is the only program that has stuck with me,” Cohee said.
The event for the alumni will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. June 23 at the Washington University’s John M. Olin School of Business. Alumni should email Cohee at cerise_cohee@myepinfinity.com.
