Mission
The Cambridge Business Development Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people start and grow successful and profitable businesses by providing mentoring and educational programs tailored to the ways entrepreneurs learn. Our focus is on early stage companies interested in growth, both high tech and traditional businesses and extending access to business ownership to minorities, women and recent immigrants. Since inception we have served over 1500 companies. CBDC is a commmunity building organization that serves people across the social, cultural and economic spectrum. CBDC values giving back and is fueled by the pro bonno services of successful entrepreneurs who volunteer their time by serving as mentors, speakers and planners of programs that serve the next generaton of entrepreneurs.
History
CBDC started in 1992 as a joint venture between the City of Cambridge and the Central Square Business Association as part of a strategy to promote entrepreneurship in this formerly blighted commercial district. CBDC was spun off in 1994 as an independent not-for-profit dedicated to developing entrepreneurs in and around Cambridge.
Early in its development, CBDC identified a strong demand for entrepreneurial support across a geographically broad and ethnically diverse spectrum of businesses. Particularly strong needs surfaced among minority/women-owned businesses and technology-related companies. Having identified these needs, CBDC began developing programs in response. Building on its unique approach to entrepreneurial development—the idea of entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs—CBDC created two successful CEO Growth Groups and also served for three years as the Cambridge affiliate for the Working Capital microbusiness peer lending program.
Since then, CBDC has expanded its programs and services for its microenterprise, general business and high tech clients and serves over 500 clients per year. Our programs include mentored grwoth groups for CEOs of high tech and small businesss, networking events, seminars and workshops and technical assistance to individuals.