Hair care brand Design Essentials recently donated $1 million to Howard University’s School of Business (SOB) to establish the Design Essentials Community Fund. Design Essentials CEO and Howard alumnus Cornell McBride Jr. donated the money to the university to bolster and encourage students to think outside the box through healthy competition among their peers.
Founded in 1990 by his father, Cornell McBride Sr, Design Essentials is a Black-owned hair care brand whose current CEO was able to gain the skills needed to successfully run a company from the very entity he chose to give back too, Howard’s School of Business.
As a proud Howard alumnus, McBride is adamant about using his company’s success to create opportunities for HBCU students.
“When I came to Howard, it was different. It was like I was in a utopian society where everything was Black or African American, everything from top to bottom for the most part. So it’s like a flip. And so what that does is it kind of encourages, it empowers you and it teaches you some important thing,” McBride said.
McBride feels that the way to increase the potential for success is by giving the guidance necessary for a young business owner to thrive early in their career.
Marcus Goode, the director of Development and Alumni Relations for the university’s School of Business, emphasized the importance of contributions from alumni to the school. Goode believes the donation will enable a competition that will in turn allow students to go forth into their entrepreneurial endeavors with an extra vote of confidence from The Mecca.
“The commitment made by Mr. McBride extends beyond a philanthropic investment in the university’s entrepreneurship programming. It represents a visionary effort to cultivate future business leaders who will establish companies poised for IPOs [initial public offerings] and assume leadership roles as chairpersons who reflect the rich diversity of their communities,” Goode said in a statement via email.
The funds will be allocated towards a mentorship program for business students as a way to give back.
“The community has taken care of us. The people who buy our products, the people we do business with, they’ve taken care of us, our family. And we believe we’re supposed to take care of those who take care of us. Simple as that,” McBride said.
Ahmad Bethel, a junior marketing major with an economics minor noted that donations like these are important for more reasons than one.
“SOB comes with a lot of costs, high costs, and entrepreneurs have to balance that along with being a student. So by having grants and scholarships such as [the Design Essentials Community Fund], that would help alleviate that and also encourage them to continue with their early entrepreneurial endeavors,” Bethel said.
Howard is no stranger to student entrepreneurship, with student-owned businesses being promoted through platforms like The ScholarShop, a virtual campus marketplace for student businesses.
However, this program will give students specifically from the School of Business an opportunity to learn from a Bison who was once in their shoes and get a leg up financially.
“The big thing for the students to understand is anything you do, you have to have a purpose. And they have to have a meaning because it keeps you going and keeps you motivated. It’s not about money. It’s about a purpose and a mission,” McBride said.
The company’s pledge of $1 million will be dispersed to the university in waves and allocated to students through pitch competitions in which McBride intends to participate.
Students will have the opportunity to not only sell him on their ideas, but he will also allow them to learn from him and get an up-close look at how he and his family have been able to sustain their success, in hopes they will be able to mirror it in their businesses as well.
“The Design Essentials community just wants to say to the students—our goal as a community is to make an impact, and [if there is] anything you know about Design Essentials or remember about Design Essentials, it is that their goal is to make an impact on the community that it serves,” McBride said.
Copy edited by Anijah Franklin
