Food and agriculture-related businesses are often perceived as too risky for traditional lending approaches, yet CDFA research tells a different story. This report, with loan-level data from over a thousand funds nationwide, demonstrates that food system loans perform and that revolving loan funds can successfully support local food system borrowers in their communities. CDFA
Resource Category: Access to Capital
Using Technical Assistance to Improve Minority and Rural Small Business Access to Capital
Minority owned small businesses face more challenges in obtaining capital than other small businesses. As stated in the PayPal-funded report, Reducing the Racial Financial Health Gap: The Opportunity for Responsible Fintech, “Black-owned small businesses have faced huge challenges in credit availability, which contributes to the racial disparities in income, financial health, and wealth. The COVID-19
Faulty Foundations: Mystery-Shopper Testing In Home Appraisals Exposes Racial Bias Undermining Black Wealth October 2022
The way that homeowners, lenders and policymakers use the term “property values” often implies that there is one organic, objective, correct definition of what someone’s home is worth. But that is not the case. Our cultural conception of property values obscures the fact that those values are often determined by human beings. Professional appraisers make
The Impacts of COVID-19 on Racial Disparities in Small Business Earnings
New research from Advocacy indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic led to greater earnings losses for business owners of color than white business owners. SBA Office of Advocacy.
California Communities’ Broadband Needs and the Role of Financial Institutions
California Communities’ Broadband Needs and the Role of Financial Institutions: Findings from California Reinvestment Coalition Surveys California Reinvestment Coalition
Bridging the Capital Access Gap Report : An Overview of the Small Business Financing Industry
Although entrepreneurship is often touted as an arena of equal opportunity, there are major systemic barriers to realizing this ideal – one being access to capital. ICIC and LISC came together for an in-depth look at the small business financing industry and ways that business owners can use this knowledge to gain access to additional avenues of capital. ICIC,
Small business owner liquid wealth at firm startup and exit
The relationship between small business ownership and wealth looms large in the imagination of policymakers and entrepreneurs alike. Indeed, people who own businesses are wealthier than those who do not. In 2019, the median net worth of self-employed families was $380,000—over four times larger than the $90,000 in net worth held by the typical working
The Small Business Boom Under the Biden-Harris Administration
Through the American Rescue Plan and the equitable implementation of emergency relief programs, President Biden and Vice President Harris fostered the strongest recovery for Main Street on record. In 2021, Americans applied to start 5.4 million new businesses—more than 20 percent higher than any previous year on record. The boom in new business creation has been
Small Business Finance FAQ February 2022
Small businesses borrow mainly for four reasons: to start a business, purchase inventory, expand,
or to strengthen the firm’s financial health. Firms choose different means of financing depending on
the intended purpose.
Does Perceived Socio-Economic Status Impact Access To Credit In The Small Business Arena?
From November 1, 2020, to December 14, 2020, NCRC conducted multi-layered matched-pair tests of 22 different financial institutions. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of socio-economic status (SES), specifically perceived education, on the interactions between race and treatment in the small business pre-application arena. SES is defined by the American Psychological