Highlights From Inaugural 10,000 Small Businesses Graduation in Baltimore

Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, was joined by 10,000 Small Businesses Advisory Committee members Michael R. Bloomberg and  Warren Buffett in Baltimore, Maryland, to celebrate 59 small business owners—whose companies represented a wide range of sectors in the economy—at the first graduation ceremony for the program there on August 2, 2017.

In the videos above, Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, congratulate the graduates and share advice with the class.

Baltimore is the 14th city in the US to participate in the 10,000 Small Businesses program, bringing the total to more than 6,300 small business owners having graduated to date. Graduates of the program nationally have both grown their revenues and hired more employees than the US average, helping to underscore the economic imperative of supporting small businesses.

At the Baltimore graduation, a new $10 million commitment was announced to support small businesses in the city— a co-investment between Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg Philanthropies, marking the first-ever co-investment in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.

Applications for the next cohort are available by clicking here.