Dive Brief:
- Dine Brands has pledged financial support to the International Franchise Association’s Franchise Ascension Initiative, a course consisting of five months of self-paced online learning and one month dedicated to preparing participants to pitch potential franchisors, according to a press release issued Tuesday.
- Dine will pledge $100,000 to the program, which Dine CEO John Peyton said represents the company’s “commitment to creating opportunities in the restaurant industry for a diverse workforce and recruiting franchisees from underrepresented communities to the Dine table.”
- The IFA frames the Ascension Initiative as a way to combat racial inequality, citing research that found White American households have about 7.8 times as much wealth as Black American households.
Dive Insight:
The IFA argues “franchising is a successful wealth-generation strategy for historically disadvantaged communities,” and claims that franchised Black businesses generate more wealth than independently-owned Black businesses. Such a claim leaves out the role the labor market plays in creating the racial wealth gap, which the Economic Policy Institute says is caused in part by the concentration of Black workers in low-wage industries, like restaurants.
Other restaurant groups, namely Inspire Brands and East Coast Wings and Grill, are listed as financial backers on the IFA’s website. The IFA’ s training program for prospective franchisees shows the restaurant industry is still committed to franchising as a diversity, equity and inclusion goal.
Major chains have launched several franchisee diversity efforts since the summer of 2020, when major demonstrations in protest of the murder of George Floyd sparked a brief flurry of corporate interest in civil rights issues. McDonald’s pledged $250 million in 2021 to finance franchising candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds, in part by cutting down upfront liquidity requirements and connecting individuals with financing options. In 2022, Wendy’s launched a development fund to increase its franchising opportunities and Popeye’s began working with the National Urban League, a major civil rights organization, to identify prospective franchisees.
The Ascension program will start accepting applications in the coming months, and the first cohort of selected applicants is expected to participate at the end of the year. Dine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it intended to recruit from the participants in the program, or on other forms of assistance it offers to economically disadvantaged would-be franchisees.
