The Workshop in Business Opportunities marks its 60th anniversary in the same year the nation marks its 250th, spotlighting entrepreneurship as the engine of opportunity in under-resourced communities
NEW YORK, NY (July 20, 2026) — As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, one New York City nonprofit is marking a milestone of its own. The Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO) turns 60 in 2026, having spent six decades of the nation’s history teaching everyday New Yorkers how to build businesses of their own.
The parallel is fitting. The American story has always been, at its heart, a story of enterprise, of people betting on themselves and building something that outlasts them. Founded in Harlem in 1966, WIBO was created to extend that promise to the communities too often left out of it. Since then, the organization has trained more than 18,000 entrepreneurs and helped create more than 34,000 jobs across the five boroughs.
The stakes are not only sentimental. Small businesses account for 43.5% of U.S. gross domestic product and create roughly two of every three net new jobs, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Every entrepreneur WIBO trains is part of that engine, and in the neighborhoods the organization serves, each new business is a paycheck, a storefront, and a step toward lasting wealth.
“Two hundred fifty years in, the American dream still runs on entrepreneurship, and for sixty of those years, WIBO has made sure that dream reaches the neighborhoods that built this city,” said Dr. Stacie N. C. Grant, Chairman of the Board of WIBO. “When you create a business in your community, the money stays in your community. That is how you build wealth that lasts for generations.”
WIBO’s flagship program, WIBO Grow, remains a 16-week, peer-based workshop covering the fundamentals that determine whether a business survives: market research, pricing, cash flow, financing, sales, operations, and long-term planning. In its 60th year, the organization has expanded into new communities, including a Queens cohort launched in partnership with the Tech Incubator at Queens College.
New Yorkers can begin their own entrepreneurial path through WIBO Grow and the free monthly information session, Decide: A Business of Your Own, held the last Thursday of each month at 7:00 PM. To learn more or enroll, visit wibo.works.