The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and FORTUNE magazine has selected Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based supplier Raining Rose, Inc. (UPIC: Raini224) for the 2015 Inner City 100, a list of the fastest-growing inner city businesses in the United States.
ICIC’s Inner City 100 program recognizes successful inner city businesses and their CEOs as role models for innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities. Each year, ICIC works with a national network of nominating partners to identify, rank, and spotlight rapidly growing urban businesses, and the top 100—determined by revenue growth—are honored on the Inner City 100 list published in FORTUNE. The list provides unmatched insight into the impact that entrepreneurship can have on underserved communities.
Raining Rose ranked 43rd overall on this year’s list, reporting 2014 revenues of $38.53 million and a five-year growth rate of 220 percent from 2010 to 2014.
“These entrepreneurs are strong community leaders and industry game changers,” says ICIC CEO Steve Grossman of the 2015 Inner City 100 winners. “Their businesses are critical drivers of economic development and job creation. Together, they demonstrate the competitive advantages of doing business with our inner cities.”
The rankings for each company were announced at the Inner City 100 Conference and Awards on October 7 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. 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.
The 2015 Inner City 100 winners represent a wide span of geography, hailing from 45 cities and 23 states. Collectively, the winners employ 6,168 people, and on average over a third of their employees live in the same neighborhood as the company.