Coming Soon!

Black Queer Business Incubator

The Black Queer Business Incubator (BQBI) will launch in 2025 as a result of the BQEI and the desire expressed by Black LGBTQ+ Chicagoans to pursue racial and economic empowerment through entrepreneurship. The BQBI will provide quarterly professional development training sessions to help 20 businesses (10 performers and 10 small business owners) excel in their careers. We focus on contract workers and small business owners because they often need more career support and a more stable income. Each participant will receive a stipend to pursue projects that the professional development trainings they engage in will equip them to manifest. 

In creating a cohort of 20 Black workers, we will resource them to develop their own projects and grow as entrepreneurs. This initiative builds off of LF’s track record of hiring Black LGBTQ+ performers and small businesses for over 120 events – an investment of $250,000+. The BQBI will help participants acquire skills needed for upward social mobility, build relationships with colleagues, improve their plight through direct funding, and serve as trusted messengers to the Black LGBTQ+ community – not only for this cohort but by scaling the impact in future years.