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Comcast gives Black entrepreneurship center $1M Grant 

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Comcast NBCUniversal has granted a one-year, $1 million donation to Atlanta’s Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs (RICE) to enhance the center’s digital programming platform and initiate a new speaker series and data science initiative. This substantial grant contributes to RICE’s mission of promoting local Black entrepreneurship, with recent contributions from major corporations like Walmart, Wells Fargo, and PayPal totaling over $3 million since August.

The Comcast NBCUniversal grant aims to support RICE in launching a new business leader speaker series starting in late March or early April. Additionally, it will facilitate the expansion of Digital RICE programming, an online entrepreneurship training platform available to all entrepreneurs by this summer. The funds will also be used to establish a research and data science initiative to measure the impact of RICE’s programs on businesses.

This grant follows previous support from Comcast, which provided around $25,000 to RICE in 2021. RICE initiated a $44.4 million capital campaign in 2019, inspired by a Jay-Z album, to expand its physical footprint, increase programming, and serve a larger number of founders. The center currently supports over 300 entrepreneurs, with a goal of serving 1,000 by 2027.

RICE, located in the original headquarters of H.J. Russell and Company, a pioneering Black-owned construction firm founded by Herman Russell in 1952, is close to achieving its capital campaign goal. The center is approximately $2 million away from reaching its target, which is anticipated to be fulfilled before the summer. The ongoing renovations at RICE’s facility include updating the original lobby and another section dating back to the 1950s. Plans for future expansion, with the goal of serving more entrepreneurs, will begin the permitting process in the summer.

Brittany Saadiq, Vice President of Development at RICE, expressed that the funds raised will enable the center to provide a new space of over 60,000 to 70,000 square feet, inspiring entrepreneurs through H.J. Russell’s legacy.

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