Can A Volunteer Network Bridge The Gap For Detroit’s Small Businesses Struggling To Reopen?

As Detroit became a hot spot for the coronavirus pandemic, many of the city’s small businesses, from restaurants to fitness studios, have been left out of the pivot to digital, unable to pop up with delivery menus or stream a workout live, because 40% of the city’s residents don’t have access to broadband internet.

With most of the resources on the safest reopening practices only available online, the future of entrepreneurship in the city is at risk. And driving business to these physical locations depends on revitalizing foot traffic and adapting to a new normal.

The solution, according to a team of Forbes Under 30 alumni who have worked through the weekend to try to imagine a new way forward, is Detroit Community Corps, a collective of skilled and generalist volunteers committed to rebuilding customer and employee confidence in brick-and-mortar small businesses.

“In the city of Detroit, there’s a lot of energy and a lot of people who are willing to give back,” Sam Gross, the cofounder of Stacker, said as he presented the idea to kick off the final night of the Forbes Under 30 Detroit Hackathon: Accelerating Change, in partnership with the City of Detroit, Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans and Major League Hacking. “We want volunteers who have meaningful connections to their neighborhoods.”

Speaking to experts like Bedrock Detroit’s Stephanie Appiah, and Hajj Flemings, the founder of civic design project Rebrand Cities, as well as local business owners like Detroit Dough’s Autumn Kyles, helped the team determine that their solution would have to overcome three substantial obstacles, other than access to the Internet: customer confidence, the high cost of personal protective equipment and the constant upkeep of new safety protocols when many small businesses owners are their only employee.

Built around a volunteer base with deep local ties to their communities, basic training in COVID-19 sanitation best practices, and industry expertise, the organization the team dreamed up would establish a foothold in each neighborhood of Detroit by setting up every brick-and-mortar business with a “reopening starter kit” which includes physical copies of reopening guidelines, free PPE, temporary physical dividers and stickers that affirming prevention measures are in place.

The team realized quickly through its expert calls that any solution would also have to address ongoing support. They determined the biggest areas where small business owners could use help are deep cleans, flexible staffing and operational coaching. To drum up business, the team determined the organization could market participating businesses as reopened, while redesigning takeout methods to cater to vulnerable populations and developing sustainable unit economics for deliveries.

Because this potential solution is community based, it is highly replicable and could make lasting change in underserved neighborhoods beyond Detroit. Incorporating volunteers and public service was the message impressed on the team by mentor John Paul DeJoria, the once-homeless billionaire who went on to cofound John Paul Mitchell Systems and later Patron Spirits.

“When you do something for someone else and ask for nothing in return, we get the greatest reward,” DeJoria told the group over a Sunday afternoon Zoom call. “You should be doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.”

Read the full executive summary here.

Team Members: Aashay Arora, Cofounder, EnKoat; James da Costa, European Regional Director, Hult Prize Foundation; Sam Gross, Cofounder, Stacker; Matt LaRosa, Cofounder, Edenworks; Ashley Nestorovska, Senior Team Leader, Quicken Loans.