Detroit Self-Employment Project (DSEP)
Cathy McClelland, Director
2727 Second Ave., Suite 120
Detroit, Mich. 48201

Simple numbers tell the story of this model program's remarkable success: Since DSEP began its mission in 1990 of giving welfare recipients the tools they need to become self-reliant by owning and operating their own businesses, 455 individuals have entered its 11-week training programs. A total of 325 of them have completed the training, 227 went on to start their own businesses, and 115 -- more than one-fourth of the total -- have moved off the welfare rolls once and for all.

Some of DSEP's greatest success stories -- recognized with photos and descriptions on the group's proud "Wall of Fame" in its classroom -- have succeeded to the point that they are not only bringing commercial enterprises back to Detroit's inner city but have become employers themselves, bringing jobs and income back to their community. Gail Davis, for example, owns a thriving building and home-renovation firm and has hired 10 people; she was honored with the Avon Corporation's "Women of Enterprise Award" this year. Bobbie Griffin turned her DSEP training into Jean De-Britt Personal Services, a home care company for elderly and ill people, and earned $110,000 in profits last year. At the age of 45, former welfare recipient Ruth Bell leveraged a $125,000 loan and purchased a 67-year-old Yugoslavian bakery on Detroit's Westside from its elderly owner, and is making the business thrive. Scores of similar success stories are happening here; according to the Wayne County Department of Social Services, the top six DSEP entrepreneurs alone -- all of them former welfare recipients -- reported combined gross sales of more than three-quarters of $1 million last year.

What makes it happen? Inspired leadership by Cathy McClelland, a brilliant and articulate woman who was herself a single mother and welfare recipient at the age of 20, but who went on to pull herself up by her own bootstraps to become a small-business owner and consultant before taking over as director of the project in 1990. Operating under a cooperative agreement with Wayne State University's College of Lifelong Learning and the Michigan and Wayne County social services departments, it's located in the university's imposing art-deco Job Commission that once housed the world headquarters of S. S. Kresge Corp.

With a staff of 15, DSEP accommodates three 11-week training sessions a year, with a maximum of 36 students in each. Its staff of 15 works under a tight budget of $545,000, the lion's share of which ($387,000) comes from the Michigan Department Jobs Commission, but McClelland is working hard to diversify it, not only to win financial security but also to move beyond DSS's restrictions that limit students to AFDC clients -- largely women, mostly black, but with a few single fathers and individuals of other racial backgrounds. With a $125,000 grant from Detroit city government in the coming year, she intends to open the classes to those with low to moderate incomes who aren't eligible for welfare.

Individuals referred through DSS and by word of mouth are invited to periodic orientation sessions, then submit applications and meet for one-on-one sessions with the organization's business consultants. Successful applicants deemed to have the drive and ability to handle entrepreneurship go into intensive classes taught by staff and dozens of outside consultants, covering a broad range of technical and personal subjects that range from developing the business plan and financing to self-esteem, stress-management and basic bookkeeping and tax rules.

On completion of the course, individuals have completed a draft business plan, and most of them proceed immediately to starting their business on a small scale. DSEP doesn't drop them there, however. Every graduate works with a personal counselor for two more years, refining their business plan and seeking financing. The organization itself, with a revolving loan fund financed by the Mott Foundation and DSS and working through a consortium of four Detroit banks, arranges for seed loans of up to $2,000, with additional loan money of up to $10,000 available when that's repaid; further, staff will work with business owners and the banks to seek more substantial traditional financing, as in the bakery purchase.

With all this support and an additional critical element -- a state AFDC waiver allowing the budding entrepreneurs to continue receiving their welfare grant for up to two years while they get their businesses up and running -- it's no surprise that as 25 percent of the people starting the program are off welfare, with many more on the way.

As successful entrepreneur-builder Gail Davis puts it in DSEP's short, compelling informational video, "When you're on welfare, you get down on yourself, and you get down on the rest of the world, and you start to say, 'I just can't do it.' But once you start to try, good things start coming to you."

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

Send him E-mail.

Back to the @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG Home Page