At its core, BOB Rochester is truly about community, collaboration, and commerce. That said, this information system was initially established to provide sustained meaningful support for Black enterprises, service organizations, and affinity groups (on occasion we'll call them BOBs) and positively contribute to regional economic development by:
Helping them improve their quality and operational effectiveness,
Raising awareness among BOBs, non-BOBs, and consumers leading to revenue generation,
Creating opportunities that position BOBs for growth and expansion (i.e. job creation, new partnerships, new resources, etc.).
Mission
Black-Owned Business (BOB) Rochester is a culturally-relevant community and economic development resource for Black-owned, -operated, and -oriented establishments throughout Greater Rochester, New York. By empowering Black enterprise, public service organizations and affinity groups, BOB Rochester fulfills its mission of "all pulling together and in the same direction" to engage in the practice of Susu economics.
BOB Rochester is an assumed name of Susu Management Group, LLC
Vision
Sustained economic revitalization of diasporic Afrikan communities through: education, empowerment, and advocacy for the creation, growth and general welfare of Black enterprises, service organizations, and affinity groups.
Goals
BOB Rochester aspires to:
Increase awareness and access to BOBs to expand the regional tax-base.
Assist BOBs with the achievement of their stated goals and objectives.
Inspire BOBs to assume a posture of continuous improvement.
Promote regional sourcing of goods and services among BOBs to improve sustainability.
BOB Rochester seeks to reunify an extraordinary people whose many contributions to civilization have been historically and systematically marginalized.
Philosophy
This site uses the terms "Black" and "Afrikan" as a way to refer to People of Afrikan descent rather than"African-Americans." This is because the term "African-American" excludes all Black people born outside of the United States of America-not to mention that regardless of a people's racial or ethnic-origins, if they are naturalized in America, then by popular standards they are American.
Just as all people of the world may also define themselves by their socio-cultural and political world-view, the Afrikan also has a long historical identity equally worthy of distinction. This land is said to be a "melting pot" of peoples from all cultures; and if that is the case, then the Afrikan presence and contributions must be made known and acknowledged to complete the recipe of America.
Fun historical facts: The use of the 'k' to represent the hard 'C' sound in the spelling of Afrikan is a cultural symbol denoting Pan-Afrikan consciousness derived from antiquity including:
The name of Emperor Tirus Afrik of the ancient Zingh Empire, which existed over 15,000 years ago. He is said to have first unified the content with the red, black and green flag.
The European corruption of the traditional Kemetic masculine/feminine name for the continent, AfuRaKa/AfuRaitKait, meaning "the Divine Land" (literally translated the House of Ra's Spirit/House of Rait's Spirit).
The 'k' is germane to Afrika since the vernacular of most traditional languages on the Continent spell Afrika with a 'k'.
We strive for excellence in all that we do to maintain the value of our products and services. That's how we do business-and it's the only way to do business.
Our commitment is to operate with the highest level of integrity and ensure transparency in order to secure the lasting respect of our members and users.
Our members and users are our esteemed partners. As such, we provide education to inspire our partners so they may make full development and become lasting contributors in our community.
We support the development of strategic alliances and communities of practice among our members and users. It is because of this collaboration that the true meaning of Susu-i.e. group-economics can be actualized.
By fostering the creativity of our members, we seek to become a catalyst in the revitalization of Afrikans and Afrikan-centered communities through innovation and practice of the Nguzo Saba and Maatian philosophy.
We understand the importance of honoring the confidentiality of our members and users. As a result, we only report aggregate member and user statistics to assist in the continuous improvement of our shared value delivery network.
By serving our members, we contribute to the regional socio-economic, professional, and cultural diversity affording better representation in all areas of human endeavor.
Nguzo Saba (Communitarian Values)
Umoja (Unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together, and to make our sister's and brother's problems our problems and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community, in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way that we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Susu Economics
Susu economics refers to traditional Afrikan trade practices under field of economics that "pulls all together" to engage in business collectively rather than operating in silos. By promoting the practice of Susu economics and well-coordinated business and community development efforts, the possibility of achieving shared prosperity is maximized. There are several ways to practice Susu economics including:
Group saving
Group investment
Rotating resource pools
For more information, attend one of our upcoming workshops.
Economic Development 101
Economic development refers to the adoption of new technologies and general improvement in living standards in developing countries (and in this case we will include underdeveloped communities). Usually, this occurs by sustainably advancing factors like health, education, working conditions, domestic and international policies and market conditions for a given locality. According to the known American economist and Yale University graduate Dr. Michael Todaro, economic development includes,"...improvement of the citizens' self-esteem needs and free and a just society." This can only be successful if the whole nation—beginning with whole communities—get behind and support it.
In order for an economic system to work, one must have a solid understanding of the roles of Suppliers, Providers, and Customers. In essence, Providers obtain essential goods and services from Suppliers in order to provide goods and services to Customers. The extent to which business and community organizations can manage their inflow and outflow of resources (e.g. land, labor, and capital) determines whether or not and how much the communities served benefit from their activities in the long-run—this is called a "multiplier effect." The longer and more frequently resources are recycled in a given community, the greater the impact those resources will have in sustaining the community.
BOB Rochester engages in economic development because it is a critical building block in the revitalization of diasporic Afrikan communities.
Learning & Development
BOB Rochester assists BOBs in their establishment, promotion and sustained development. Below you will find a listing of our current offerings.