This article originally appeared in the Bay Area Reporter. Madison Eker, founder and CEO of Altogether Agency, sought to refresh and rebrand her firm, which works with companies to enhance their workplace culture. She had launched it under a different name five years ago and felt at a loss for how to reimagine it for todays business climate, where initiatives focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion have been negatively labeled as woke and discriminatory by conservative pundits.I was at a point in my business where I really needed guidance, recalled Eker, 39, who lives in Larkspur, California, with her wife, Nadia, and their newborn son, Rocco. I wanted to rebrand and take it to the next level, but I didnt really know where to go.For Menel Raach, who was transitioning from a career in journalism to the apparel industry, it was a desire for hands-on assistance in crafting a business plan. Rather than just read a book or take an online course by herself, she wanted a more personal experience where she could also meet other LGBTQ business owners.Being an entrepreneur gets lonely. I wanted something that has a strong sense of community and was local and that made me feel safe, said Raach, 33, the owner of clothing and lifestyle brand Azul, who is bisexual and lives in San Francisco.Both women turned to the SF LGBT Community Centers New Entrepreneur Training Program to assist them with their business goals. Launched seven years ago, it is one of the few programs in the country aimed at helping queer and transgender people open their own firm or expand and retool an existing business.I think we might eventually drop the new from the name because it is a pretty wide range of businesses that go through this training, said small business consultant Eddie Tang, 53, who lives a nomadic life and spoke with the Bay Area Reporter by phone in mid-October from Budapest where he had been living the past two months.The centers program attracts people with a pretty solid idea for a business they want to get off the ground, said Tang, as well as people who have owned their companies for two or three years and are looking for assistance to expand it to the next level. He has also trained experienced business owners, some of whom have operated their businesses for up to 20 years.The funny thing I notice is some people who have been in business a long time are the ones who say, I didnt know about a lot of this, and learn so much from this program, said Tang, who was engaged by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to present in Rome this fall on how to create a better entrepreneur ecosystemin Somalia.Men dominate LGBT-majority owned small businesses and those with an LGBT minority stake. Graph: From 2024 Small Business Credit SurveySteady growth in LGBTQ firmsNearly a decade ago, the National LGBTQ+ & Allied Chamber of Commerce issued areportthat estimated there were 1.4 million LGBTQ business owners across the U.S. and it projected that those firms contributed nearly $2 trillion to the countrys economy.Last year, LGBTQ-founded companies hit a milestone, accounting for 10% of all new business owners in the U.S., according to payroll companyGusto. It marked a 50% increase from 2023, which Gusto noted brought LGBTQ representation in entrepreneurship in line with the general population.The companys report on LGBTQ entrepreneurs also found that more than a third of queer- and transgender-owned businesses that opened in 2024 were in the professional services industry, while more than half were in community or personal services such as health care, accommodation, and retail.Whites dominate LGBT-majority owned small businesses and those with an LGBT minority stake. Graph: From 2024 Small Business Credit SurveyNew LGBTQ entrepreneurs were 56% more likely than their non-LGBTQ peers to say they started a business to make a positive impact on their community. That difference (62% compared to 40%, respectively) helps explain why so many LGBTQ-owned businesses are in industries that center on care and community, noted Gusto senior economist Nich Tremper.According to the most recent Small Business Credit Survey file:///Users/cynthial/Downloads/SBCS_Chartbook2025_LGBTQ.pdf using data from 2024, of the 283 companies with majority LGBTQ ownership surveyed, 83% are based in urban areas, with 17% founded in rural parts of the country. Among the 112 firms with partial meaning less than 50% LGBTQ ownership, 77% are in urban areas and 23% in rural locales.Most owners of LGBTQ majority firms are 35 years of age or older, with those 35 to 44 accounting for 29%, those 45 to 54 years old comprising 25%, and those aged 55 to 64 at 23%. The latter age category accounted for the most firms with partial LGBTQ ownership at 32%.Men dominated both LGBTQ ownership groups, accounting for 66% of majority owners and 70% of those with minority stakes. Women accounted for 33% of the LGBTQ majority-owned firms and 13% of LGBTQ partially owned firms.The majority of LGBT-majority owned small businesses are located in urban areas. Graph: From 2024 Small Business Credit SurveyWhite owners dominated both categories, leading 87% of LGBTQ majority and 80% of LGBTQ partially owned firms. Hispanic owners accounted for 6% of the majority and 7% of partially LGBTQ owned firms, with Asians at 4% and 12% ownership of the respective firms and African American owners at 2% and 1% respectively.Over the last five years, Tang has seen an uptick in LGBTQ people interested in owning their own company. With larger businesses and corporations facing headwinds in a souring economy, the small business sector is becoming a larger draw for queer and trans people, he noted.I was pleasantly surprised that people really want to start a business, Tang said. Sometimes for people in our community, regular employment doesnt always fit for them, but owning a business works for them.By the end of 2023, according to the credit survey, 40% of the LGBTQ majority-owned and 39% of the LGBTQ partially owned firms it tracked were operating at a profit. Meanwhile, 63% of the majority-owned and 73% of the partially owned firms expected their revenues would increase over the following 12 months.The biggest challenge both LGBTQ ownership categories cited (61% majority owned, 70% partially owned) was trying to reach customers and grow sales. The second biggest headache the firm owners said they had to contend with (47% majority owned, 54% partially owned) was hiring and retaining qualified staff.In 2015, Tang, who is gay, founded Above Consulting Inc. to support small business owners. Not long after, the LGBTQ center in San Francisco approached him about collaborating on launching its entrepreneurship training program. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the sessions have been held virtually a shift Tang says will remain permanent. The online format also allows him to work remotely, traveling frequently and spending time this year in Spain, Greece, and Morocco.I am one of the persons who has never went back to the office, said Tang. It has worked out really well and allowed me to see more clients.The centers program runs nine weeks and meets every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is now holding its 17th cohort of entrepreneurs, who are set to graduate on November 5, and enrolling people for the 18th one that will start meeting in March.We usually have a cap at 12 people, just because the program is designed to be very interactive, noted Tang, who oversaw a similar program for people wanting to open businesses focused on the needs of the kink community, offered by the citys Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District.Last year, he designed and launched a special four-week training for art entrepreneurs via the LGBTQ centers small business program. He expects to offer it again in 2026 and is recruiting 10 people to take part in it.Tang also provides one-on-one consulting for business owners as part of the centers offerings. Over six sessions, he meets with the individual for two hours to focus on different aspects of their strategy, from financing and marketing to receiving customer feedback.Our program is one of the very few designed to help entrepreneurs in the LGBTQ community and is probably one of the very few in the country, said Tang. There is just a lot of need. We probably need more support from the community so we can better support the entrepreneurs in our community.For the last session of the entrepreneurial training program, Tang brings in a panel of business leaders, university professors, and lawyers to listen to each of the entrepreneurs present their final business plan and offer feedback on it.They will leave with a pitch deck because they have been doing presentations every two weeks, said Tang. The program helps them refine their business plan and business model for marketing, operations, and finances so they can implement it into their business right away after the training.Using her pitch deck developed via the program, Eker was able to obtain a $5,000 grant from the San Francisco Womens Entrepreneurship Fund to hire another LGBTQ-owned firm, Concrete and Palm, to work with her on rebranding her own company. She had learned about the funding source for women-owned businesses from Tang.He was my technical assistance provider and helped me with my application! she noted.As for her firms new name, Eker said she felt it symbolized the values, mission, and purpose of the Altogether Agency, which is really unifying workplaces and making culture that feels like a happy place that people can work together in, so altogether.Using what she learned from Tang via the entrepreneur program, Raach was recently awarded a grant from Creative Tunisia, which is sponsored by UNIDO, to help her market her business. It will provide her with between 9,000 to 15,000 euros to do so, she said.It gives you so much support to connect to organizations to get funds and finances, said Raach of the training, so it is a good place to start.Azul owner Menel Raach was a participant in the San Francisco LGBT Community Centers New Entrepreneur Training Program because she wanted a more personal experience where she could also meet other LGBTQ business owners. Photo: Courtesy the subjectParticipants fine-tune business plansRaised in Tunis, Tunisia, where she had earned an undergraduate journalism degree, then a masters degree in screenwriting and filmmaking, Raach moved to the Bay Area in 2018 and enrolled in a business class at a local community college.I had been a little bit lost in moving to a new country, she recalled.When COVID hit, Raach started to rethink her career goals, having found journalism to be a joyless pursuit. In July 2023, she attended the Northern Nights Music Festival held among a grove of Californias famed redwoods and found inspiration to launch a business that celebrates North African fabrics.I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs in Tunisia who all sell fabrics, said Raach, though she hadnt expected to do so herself.Yet, in seeing the artisan vendors selling their wares at the music festival, Raach felt a calling after realizing they were sharing parts of their soul in their jewelry or clothing. It also brought to mind the souks, or open-air marketplaces, of her home country.Once home the Monday after that weekend, she learned her brother, in his late 30s, had died from cancer. No one had told her that he had been sick, so the news was gut-wrenching.I had so much pain and I was working to just pay the bills, she said of that time, leading her to join a friend on an ayahuasca retreat. After the ceremony, on the flight back home, I saw the sky and this beautiful sunset. I felt this joy and positivity after a few months of darkness.It led to her decision to start a company that celebrates African fabrics and tells their story to global consumers. Needing help to formalize a business plan, Raach took part in the LGBTQ centers program last fall and launched her Azul clothing label in August.I changed my perspective. Instead of feeling helpless, I am going to use that anger and frustration as a tool to have more meaningful work, said Raach. It is why I chose to start Azul. It means a lot to me to share my identity.She sees her new venture as bedded in the storytelling aspect of journalism but using a different medium, in this case apparel, to highlight the lives of the North African artisans who weave the fabrics she uses for her clothing collections, the second of which is set to debut next summer.Azul is a lifestyle brand whose mission is to promote our textile heritage through fashion. I would love to have it be a full lifestyle brand, said Raach.The name not only refers to the blue Mediterranean skies of her youth but also means hello and from the heart in Tifinagh, the Amazigh language of North Africas Indigenous people. Already, two of the four pieces in her debut collection available at herwebsitehave sold out.I want to focus on artisans because they are losing their jobs and it is an endangered craft. If we dont share it and preserve it, we will lose it, said Raach.A native of Vancouver, Canada, Eker moved to San Francisco 13 years ago after college. A queer femme, she first met her wife, who is lesbian, eight years ago, and the couple married nearly three years ago.Eker initially opened her business as Sum of Us, working both with community groups and corporate clients. After deciding to focus her firm solely on the business community, Eker took part in the LGBT centers training in the spring of 2024.It is structured in a way to help you grow and get support within my community. It turned out to be such a great support and experience, recalled Eker, who launched her firms rebrand and newwebsitein January. It was good to go back to the drawing board and talk about things you might have missed.As for the rollback on DEI programs by businesses, Eker said it hasnt led to a precipitous drop off in clients for her firm. It did require a bit of a pivot in how they pitch themselves and the work they do, such as using the phrase a better workplace culture instead of DEI.I would say the companies that really are for belonging and creating a unified culture and believe in inclusion, they have gone even further with their bookings and wanting to do even more, said Eker.Eker now employs two people full-time and works with a dozen independent contractors. Her client base is global and has included Meta, Salesforce, and the British beverage brand Fever-Tree.Since the cohort, I feel much clearer about who we are as a business and what we offer. It helped me attract bigger, stronger clients and have a better relationship with them, said Eker, who explained her companys mission is humanity at work. We are all about bringing more humanity into how we work together.Tang chalks up the long-running success of the entrepreneurial training program to how he has structured its weekly three-hour sessions. Each is divided into upwards of 60 minutes where he discusses a certain aspect of a business strategy, such as devising a marketing plan, with the rest of the time allotted for the participants to present their plan on it and receive feedback from the others in the program.It is very hands-on and very interactive, said Tang. I think people really like that.That aspect of the program was very powerful for Eker.You learn from each other, share feedback and cheer each other on, she said.Raach has stayed in touch with several people from her cohort whom she meets up with on Mondays to continue to provide support to each other with their business endeavors. She advised anyone joining an upcoming cohort to take it seriously. If you follow the course and do the homework Eddie gives you, it will give you a structure for your business and support, especially if you feel alone as an entrepreneur.Since graduating from the program, Eker has talked it up to other LGBTQ entrepreneurs, pointing out that it is free to take, easy to apply for, and an invaluable offering.As an LGBTQ-plus business owner, I would tell them you are already breaking the mold just by being yourself. Yes, there are hurdles, but there are also incredible resources like this program to help you, said Eker.The program is open to anyone who plans to open a business based in San Francisco. To learn more about and to sign up for the next cohort, visit the LGBTQ centers small businesswebpage.This article is part of a national initiative exploring how geography, policy, and local conditions influence access to opportunity. Find more stories ateconomicopportunitylab.com/.The post Entrepreneurs find support via SF LGBTQ center program appeared first on News Is Out.