NEWS & MEDIA

We live by our core values PLAY
 


IMAJINE THAT AMONG ICIC AND FORTUNE'S INNER CITY 100 WINNERS


PRESS RELEASE - September 23, 2016

Annual ranking showcases the fastest-growing urban businesses in America.

LAWRENCE, MA – The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and Fortune have announced that Imajine That had been selected for prestigious 2016 Inner City 100 list. This recognition places Imajine That in an exemplary lineage of nearly 900 fast-growing and innovative inner city businesses.

ICIC’s Inner City 100 is an annually compiled and released list featuring high-power, high-potential businesses from around the country with headquarters in inner cities. Each company is selected by ICIC with help from a national network of nominating partners who seek to identify, spotlight, and further enable the named companies’ innovative urban entrepreneurship. Ranked by revenue growth, the esteemed recipients go on to have their names published in Fortune.

Imajine That ranked 45th overall on the list of 100. Imajine That, which provides education and enrichment programs for children through an experiential museum in Lawrence, pop-up programming in the Lawrence and Boston Public Schools, and daylong, family engagement preschool programs, reported 2015 revenues of $1.94 million and a five-year growth rate of 282 percent from 2011-2015.

The full list can be viewed on the Fortune website here.

In addition to announcing the list, company CEOs were invited to gather for a full-day event featuring thought-provoking sessions, insightful leadership advice, and robust networking opportunities. Past winners have reported meeting future multi-million dollar investors as a result of appearing on the Inner City 100 list and attending the accompanying colloquium.

The rankings for each company were announced at the Inner City 100 Conference and Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at the Aloft Hotel in Boston, MA. Before the awards celebration, winners gathered for a full-day business symposium featuring management case studies from Harvard Business School professors and interactive sessions with top CEOs. Keynote speakers at this year’s event included Interim CEO of Staples Shira Goodman, Chairman and CEO of Pinnacle Group and Inner City 100 alumnus Nina Vaca, and Harvard Business School Professor and ICIC Founder and Chairman Michael E. Porter.  Other speakers included Corey Thomas, CEO of Rapid 7, Loren Feldman of Forbes, Lynda Applegate and Amy Edmondson from Harvard Business School,  John Stuart of PTC, Robert Wallace, CEO of Bithenergy, and Brook Colangelo of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Of particular note, ICIC inducted 14 businesses into the Inner City 100 “Hall of Fame” as homage to these companies’ successive growth achievement of five or more years. For only the second time in ICIC’s history of 18 years a business has made the Inner City 100 for the 10th time: Raining Rose of Cedar Rapids, IA. Such consistent appearances affirm the resilient upwards trajectory of, and demonstrated need for, local inner city businesses like the ones celebrated on this year’s list.

“We are extraordinarily proud of these pioneering entrepreneurs who lead the way in economic revitalization in America’s inner cities,” says Steve Grossman, CEO of ICIC, of the list of 100.

The Inner City 100 program recognizes and supports successful inner city business leaders, and celebrates their role in providing innovation and job creation in America’s cities. These companies strengthen local American economies, provide job opportunities for underrepresented communities, and drive forward economic and social development.

Boasting an average five-year growth rate of 458 percent between 2011 and 2015, the 2016 Inner City 100 winners represent a wide span of geography, hailing from 42 cities and 25 states. Collectively, the winners employed 7,324 people in 2015, and on average over a third of their employees live in the same neighborhood as the company.

Highlights of the 2016 Inner City 100 include:

  • Employ 7,324 workers total in 2015.
  • Created 4,696 new jobs in the last five years.
  • On average, 34% of employees live in same neighborhood as the company.
  • Average company age is 16 years.
  • Average 2015 revenue is $12.2 million.
  • 34% are women-owned.
  • 37% are minority-owned.
  • 6% of the winners are certified B-Corps.
  • 26 industries represented in the top 100.
Inner City 100 Methodology: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) defines inner cities as core urban areas with higher unemployment and poverty rates and lower median incomes than their surrounding metropolitan statistical areas. Every year, ICIC identifies, ranks, and spotlights the 100 fastest-growing businesses located in America’s inner cities. In 2016, Companies were ranked by revenue growth over the five-year period between 2011 and 2015. This list was audited by the independent accounting firm Rucci, Bardaro, and Falzone, PC.

Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)
ICIC is a national nonprofit founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ICIC's mission is to promote economic prosperity in America's inner cities through private sector investment that leads to jobs, income and wealth creation for local residents. Through its research on inner city economies, ICIC provides businesses, governments and investors with the most comprehensive and actionable information in the field about urban market opportunities. The organization supports urban businesses through the Inner City 100, Inner City Capital Connections and the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programs. Learn more at www.icic.org or @icicorg.