Request for Proposals

NICHE Inc. is a national nonprofit that incubates, accelerates, and connects aspiring entrepreneurs and minority business owners to education, social and financial capital, and back office resources needed to start, manage, and scale a business.

For nearly 25 years, our founder, Tosseia R. Holmes, has helped everyday people start and manage their own businesses. In 2015, she began working with neighborhood organizations across the country to teach their residents how to launch businesses in their neighborhoods. 

As CEO of Crooked Creek Northwest Community Development Corporation, Tosseia worked for two years to establish and grow businesses in northwest Indianapolis. In just 18 months, she had raised nearly $1M, delivered 500 hours of business education and mentorship to minority residents, launched three new neighborhood businesses, and provided technical assistance to grow ten others.

In 2023, she launched NICHE as a national nonprofit to build a more equitable ecosystem of entrepreneurs, specifically for African-Americans and Latinx living in disinvested neighborhoods across America.

NICHE partners with local development corporations to deliver programming using three primary methods:

1. NICHE 1.0 - Incubation
2. NICHE 2.0 - Acceleration
3. NICHE Jr. - Entrepreneurship Summer Camp

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