DeKalb County, Georgia's 50th Entrepreneur Friendly Community

The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s (GDEcD) Small Business & Innovation (SBI) Division provides a community-based program that helps create an entrepreneur environment, building entrepreneur and small business strategy into the community’s overall economic development strategies. Initiated in August of 2004, Georgia’s “Entrepreneur Friendly” Initiative assists the state’s counties in cultivating business environments that develop and encourage entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The DeKalb Chamber of Commerce and other county business organizations worked closely with GDEcD Regional Project Managers-Small Business & Innovation (RPM-SBI) to go through proven methods designed to establish an entrepreneur support program. The methodology also saw to it that all small business organizations understood their existing entrepreneur environment and developed sustainable, effective local strategies. As a result, DeKalb County was able to create long-term, sustainable small business development programs. More importantly, DeKalb County was named Georgia's 50th Entrepreneur Friendly Community.