Pacific Community Ventures has been driven to create good jobs, empower small businesses, and help impact investors more effectively invest in underserved communities since our founding in 1998. We’ve invested close to $100 million of capital and pro bono advising hours in quality-job-creating companies, and influenced a growing pool of tens of billions in impact investment capital supporting progress toward 15 of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
PCV has always had a theory of change to drive our work and strategy, and after evolving our mission in 2016 to more explicitly focus on creating quality jobs and rigorously measuring those results we decided to publish it for all to see.
We envision a world of thriving communities where everyone has a fair shake. Our Theory of Change illustrates the ways in which our resources and strategies contribute to the outcomes and impacts we’re working to accomplish in our mission.
We leverage our skills and experience, networks and relationships, financial capital, and technology to empower small businesses and impact investors. Building a successful small business involves overcoming many challenges, and it’s even harder if you’re new to the country or don’t have money from your family to help you get started. We give entrepreneurs hope by helping them knock down structural barriers and arming them with resources, advising, and investment.
To empower small business owners, we offer small fair and affordable small businesses loans and an online platform that connects business owners to pro bono expert advisors. To empower impact investors and grow the field of impact investing, we conduct field-building research and provide impact measurement and management and evaluation consulting services. Our small business and impact investing strategies are united by a focus on quality jobs; our thought leadership, strategies, and tools support small businesses and impact investors in creating good jobs for working people.
Through our small business services, impact investing services, and overarching quality jobs strategy, we support positive outcomes for small business owners, working people, underinvested communities, and impact investors.
- By providing small businesses with loans, advice, mentorship, and referrals, we increase their access to the loans and advice they need to growth their business, ultimately contributing to enhanced financial sustainability and improved business performance.
- By strengthening small businesses, we support them in creating jobs and improving job quality, which contributes to increased wealth creation, financial sustainability, and economic opportunity for employees and their families. Improving the resources and opportunities of working people and increasing investment strengthens underinvested communities.
- By strengthening small businesses and increasing investment in these communities, we contribute to increased access to critical resources, community resilience, and economic vitality.
- By helping impact investors more effectively deploy and manage their capital in alignment with their impact objectives and fostering a supportive policy environment, PCV contributes to the growth and increased efficacy of the impact investing industry.
The increased financial sustainability and performance of small businesses, wealth and opportunity for underserved individuals, assets of underserved communities, and scale and efficacy of the impact investing market contribute to better livelihoods, stronger local economies, and more equitable communities. We believe that in improving livelihoods, strengthening local economies, and contributing to more equitable communities, we are promoting progress a world of thriving communities where everyone has a fair shake.