Minority Contractors Business Assistance Program, administered through the state-funded Central
Ohio Minority Business Association in Columbus,
works with more than 5,000 small businesses to gain
access to contracts through procurement “
matchmaking” fairs and counseling, such as how to prepare a loan
application, write a business plan or get certified.
The Statewide Minority International Trade
Conference is being held in Columbus this month
for companies expanding globally. Workshops include
“How to Identify Trade Leaders” and “Dealing With
Customs, Rules and Regulations.”
ship-training program to help facilitate the placement
of LGBT people onto community boards.
WHAT’S NEXT?
With voter approval this fall, the city would fund future
public-infrastructure projects by selling $1.66 billion in
bonds. From sanitation improvements to road resurfacing, these initiatives would generate thousands of jobs
and have a $3-billion economic impact on the region
over the next five years, officials report. Several are
included in the Blueprint for the Bicentennial, recently
issued by Mayor Coleman’s commission in preparation
for the city’s 200th birthday in 2012.
ADVOCATING FOR LGBTS
Columbus has one of the
largest and most vibrant
LGBT populations in the
country. A domestic-partner
City Hall registry—a symbolic
document that can be used
in some companies to gain
domestic-partner rights—is
building supporter momentum.
“I’d be honored to recognize
relationships that committed
individuals have entered into,”
City Councilman Andrew J.
Ginther said to the press. “We as
a city ought to do everything we
can to help families remain stable
and healthy and productive.”
Karla R. Rothan, an LGBT-
rights advocate in Central Ohio Second to Chicago, the Columbus Pride Parade is the largest in the Midwest.
and executive director of the
nonprofit Stonewall Columbus, is also working to revise
City Charter language to include gender identity. Located in a new community center in the Short North Arts
District, Stonewall Columbus hosts discussion groups
on, for example, how to reconcile faith with sexual
orientation or how to come out. Plus, its on-staff registered nurse provides free HIV testing. Other healthcare
initiatives in the works: a companion program to assist
aging gay shut-ins and a “gay-friendly” accreditation for
local physicians. “Just imagine a kid visiting one of our
college campuses,” Rothan says. “He walks down the
street and sees our [LGBT] center. What’s he going to
think? He’s going to want to make this place his home.”
The United Way of Central Ohio this year launched
its Pride Leadership program, an eight-month leader-
The commission’s 15-person diversity sub-team
(consisting of business and community leaders, such as
Abercrombie & Fitch’s Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion Todd Corley and Stonewall Columbus’ Rothan)
has recommended organizing a diversity super festival
and forming a diversity task force.
The mission: to set metrics and help increase the
number of local MWBEs, to develop public-safety forces
that mirror the city’s demographics and to promote
more Blacks, Latinos, Asians and others to leadership
roles throughout the city—including corporations.
“If there’s anything corporations can do to improve
their value, it’s for them to be more diverse,” says
Mayor Coleman. “They need their senior leaders and
boards to be at least as diverse as their consumer base.”
