Legacy Lives Here
Presented by Enterprising Black Orlando
Investing in what comes next.
Legacy Lives Here is a campaign powered by Enterprising Black Orlando to honor the people, businesses, institutions, and communities that built the foundation we stand on, and mobilize the relationships, resources, capital, and ideas needed to build what comes next.
Their legacy is our foundation. What we build next is our responsibility.
Est. 08.29.2026 · In Celebration of Black Philanthropy Month
Our goal
$375,000
Raised by our community, not by grants.
Target, confirm the number with Candice
Stories we are gathering
100
Legacy, dreaming, and building, recorded across Orlando all year.
Going back to the community
80%
To Black-led organizations, Black leaders, and Black businesses right here.
To grow Black philanthropy, we must grow Black businesses.
Black businesses do more than generate revenue. They create jobs. Build wealth. Mentor the next generation. Support community organizations. Serve on boards. Purchase from other local businesses. Stabilize neighborhoods. Create pathways to ownership.
And when Black businesses grow, our community’s capacity to give, invest, lead, employ, own, and build grows with them. Business growth is community-building.
Legacy Lives Here connects philanthropy and economic mobility because building stronger Black businesses is part of building stronger families, institutions, neighborhoods, and communities.
What we are building
Turning conversation, relationships, and investment into infrastructure.
Legacy Lives Here will help EBO and our partners build stronger infrastructure for Black economic mobility across Central Florida.
A more connected village
Businesses, Black-led organizations, financial institutions, funders, civic leaders, and residents around shared priorities and collective action.
Stronger pathways to capital
Entrepreneurs, lenders, investors, and advisors connected so more businesses become capital-ready and get the funding to grow.
More industry opportunity
Industry Exchange Labs where entrepreneurs work beside experts, lenders, and anchor institutions to open pathways into growing industries.
Better data. Stronger stories.
The tools, stories, and insights that show leaders and funders where opportunity exists and where barriers still limit growth.
More leaders building institutions
Preparing the people who will steward resources, influence decisions, and build institutions that last generations.
A more connected village
Businesses, Black-led organizations, financial institutions, funders, civic leaders, and residents around shared priorities and collective action.
Stronger pathways to capital
Entrepreneurs, lenders, investors, and advisors connected so more businesses become capital-ready and get the funding to grow.
More industry opportunity
Industry Exchange Labs where entrepreneurs work beside experts, lenders, and anchor institutions to open pathways into growing industries.
Better data. Stronger stories.
The tools, stories, and insights that show leaders and funders where opportunity exists and where barriers still limit growth.
More leaders building institutions
Preparing the people who will steward resources, influence decisions, and build institutions that last generations.
Come build with us
The work and the dreaming and the building still have to happen. Here’s where it happens next.
Year-round · hosted by you
Host a Legacy Conversation
If you want to help shape what comes next, bring your company, congregation, organization, family, giving circle, or neighborhood to the table.
We provide the conversation guide and questions. You help gather the voices. What we hear together will help shape the solutions, partnerships, and investments we build across Central Florida.
February · Black History Month
Cities of Inclusive Leadership Exchange (COIL) · Atlanta
We’re bringing a delegation to Atlanta to learn from a city where Black culture, business, leadership, and influence are deeply connected. Together, we’ll build relationships, study what’s working, and bring new ideas and strategies home to strengthen Central Florida.
Join the tripStay in the Village
There’s more than one way to be part of this.
Tell us what you want to hear about: the COIL Exchange, Village Institute sessions, or ways to give. We’ll send you that and nothing else.
We promise to show up for each other,to spend where we are seen,to hire from the block we came from,to open the door we were let through,to say the name of the person who helped us,to build what our children can stand on.
Black Philanthropy Month
is where the story starts.
All month, we asked Orlando one question: Imagine what Black philanthropy could do together? We recorded every answer.
Now, we’re on a mission to keep the conversation going across Central Florida, inviting people to share their stories, hopes, and visions for philanthropy in our community. Together, we are building a living archive that honors what came before us, reflects what our community needs now, and expands what the next generation believes is possible.
Five questions, answer one, or answer all of them
- Who taught you to give?
- Who opened a door for you?
- What are you building?
- Whose legacy are you carrying forward?
- What do you dream our community could build if it had the resources?
Legacy
The ones who built it with their own hands
A founder who grew a service business the honest way, one job and one referral at a time.
Dreaming
What would you build if someone had believed in you first?
A leader who pours into women and girls, and into everything they go on to build.
Builder
What does building look like when the work is our health?
A founder closing the health gaps our community has carried for far too long.
Where the money goes, and what it buys
The ask we are making
$10,000
The Legacy Collective
Living Legacy Placement, quarterly Legacy Dinners, and a named role in the work you fund.
$25,000
The Anchor
Anchors a full year of Industry Exchange Labs. Placement, Legacy Dinners, and a standing seat in the strategy.
$7,500
Capital Pathways
Underwrites the capital readiness work that gets Black-owned businesses funded.
$5,000
Industry Exchange
Puts entrepreneurs in the room with experts, lenders, and anchor institutions.
$2,000
The Village
Funds a Legacy Conversation and the listening that shapes what we build.
The Living Legacy Placement
Your name on a Black philanthropy installation placed in a business or civic space through August, or a named partnership with a Black-owned business recognized all year. Also available as a standalone installation sponsorship: you curate the guest list, we bring the conversation.
Candice Simmons
Candice Simmons · President & CEO, Enterprising Black Orlando
Replace the script line with her real signature as a transparent PNG if she’ll give you one.
We build. We give. We grow.
What will your legacy build?
Every generation inherits something. Every generation also has the responsibility to add something. Our opportunity is to build stronger businesses, stronger institutions, stronger leaders, and a stronger economic future for the generations coming behind us.
No single organization can do it alone. But a village aligned around its resources, relationships, knowledge, influence, and imagination can build something powerful. Organizations need more than dollars. They need board members, mentors, expertise, and the relationships you already have.
Legacy already lives here.
What comes next is ours to build.
The gathering is the beginning. The work is what follows.
We gather again next August, in Black Philanthropy Month. Southern hospitality, live music, spoken word, and the stories of Orlando entrepreneurs turning what they earn into something the whole community can stand on.
200Seats
20Village tables
1Room, finally
Legacy Lives Here
Enterprising Black Orlando
© 2026 Enterprising Black OrlandoInvesting in Black business · Building community wealth · Creating the future together