New York, N.Y. - March 14, 2006 - The National Urban League announced today that the Jacksonville Urban League has been designated as one of five national pilot centers for the creation of an Economic Empowerment Center funded in part through the National Urban League, The Ewing Kauffman Foundation, the Business Roundtable, the National Economic Council, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency. The Jacksonville Urban League will also introduce local executive Charles Reynolds as the Director of its center.

The new Center is in partnership with the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership (UEP), a program that was announced initially by the National Urban League in October 2004. The UEP brings together several of the country's top private, public and nonprofit organizations to improve minority entrepreneurship, business development and job creation in historically neglected and economically underserved urban areas nationwide, also known as Empowerment Zones.

"The establishment of our five pilot centers, including the launch of the Jacksonville EEC, reflects our strong belief that supporting and growing minority entrepreneurship and businesses are key avenues to creating wealth," said Marc Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League. "Our partners have set an ambitious goal of establishing even more of these one-stop centers in communities nationwide and we're hoping to take our lessons-learned from these initial pilot centers and build on their success for the future."

Once operational, the Jacksonville Empowerment Center will provide business training, coaching, access to nationwide financing, and procurement opportunities to minority and urban business owners in the Jacksonville area. Business owners may also benefit from access to $127.5 million in New Market Tax Credits administered through the National Urban League/Stonehenge Capital Empowerment Fund of which the Jacksonville center will receive access to $6 million as seed capital in the form of loans.

The Jacksonville Urban League's launch of its Economic Empowerment Center completes the launch of the five EEC pilot programs with other Urban League affiliates. The Jacksonville EEC will launch with about 20 resource partners from the Jacksonville area.

"This is a very interdependent program that draws on multiple resources from the community," said Charles Reynolds. "Our goal is to work with our local and national resource partners to ensure that we're working together to create as many success stories as possible."

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