Pacific Community Ventures is honored and excited to announce our new advisory council. This diverse group of small business owners, impact investors, community leaders, and professional mentors brings a wealth of skills and experience that will help us innovate our programs, engage our communities, and develop new partnerships. We couldn’t be happier to have each and every one of these extraordinary people on board. By supporting PCV, each Advisory Council member is doing their part to strengthen small businesses, create jobs, and build stronger and healthier communities.
Pacific Community Ventures Working To Make Super Bowl LI A Texas-Sized Local Business Success
Super Bowl LI is more than the NFL’s marquee game of the year – it’s a chance for Greater Houston area’s diverse business community to tap into opportunities for new contracts, work and business growth. To drive that, the Super Bowl LI Host Committee has launched the Business Connect program to work with businesses located in the Houston metro area that are certified as minority-owned, women-owned, LGBTQ-owned, or disabled veteran-owned. Last year in San Francisco we saw how a local business focus for the Super Bowl can have an impact of $200+ million on the regional economies in which the game is played. But, keeping that money in the community has always been a challenge. Super Bowl LI has partnered with Pacific Community Ventures to bring our BusinessAdvising.org program for free to these 400 Business Connect companies. BusinessAdvising.org is providing them with intensive business mentoring to help them grow their business for the Super … Read More
A First-Timer Experiencing Opportunity Finance Network’s 2016 Conference
This piece is from Justin Fier, Managing Director of InSight, our in-house impact investing consulting practice. Last month, multiple PCV colleagues of mine and I attended the CDFI industry’s premiere annual event, the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) Conference, held this year in Atlanta. As a newcomer to PCV — as well as the CDFI industry — I was excited to meet industry peers and learn more. The conference was attended by over 1,200 individuals, most of whom work for the 1,000+ CDFIs that are scattered across the U.S. As many of our blog readers know, Community Development Financial Institutions, or CDFIs, are not new to the financial world. First introduced by the U.S. government in the early 1990s, the new structure was considered innovative, even though some of these entities had been in operation for decades. In general, a CDFI is a financial institution that provides financial services to … Read More
Get Ready For Small Business Saturday 2016
Now in its seventh year, Small Business Saturday serves as the kickoff to the holiday shopping season for small businesses across the United States. Each year, shoppers spend tens of billions at small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Focusing on small businesses and local jobs directly combats income inequality. Small businesses create jobs — 70% of the jobs created since the end of the recession came from small businesses, as opposed to zero net new jobs from giant corporations. But simply creating jobs won’t stem the tide of income inequality. The kinds of jobs being created, and where those jobs drive their wealth, matters just as much. Our friends at Fit Small Business recently looked into why Small Business Saturday is so important for these job-creating community businesses: Over half (52%) of consumers plan to shop the weekend following Thanksgiving. 1 in 4 holiday shoppers (24%) are planning to “shop small” and … Read More
PCV Is Adding Microloans To Our Small Business Lending Program
We’re thrilled to announce that beginning today PCV is offering microloans in amounts of $10,000–$50,000 to help California small businesses add jobs, purchase equipment, expand their inventories, repair machinery, or get through construction. PCV’s small business loan program started during the Recession, when many major banks stopped offering business loans under $250,000. This capital crunch made things harder for small businesses in underserved areas who were already fighting to stay afloat. 1/3 of entrepreneurs who apply for a bank loan are rejected; 54% among people of color. And women in general are turned down for loans 20% more often than men. In California, PCV has been filling part of this gap with loans between $50,000 – $200,000 for small businesses that can’t get financing from traditional financial institutions or the Small Business Administration. We listened when more and more of you said that you need small business loans under $50,000, … Read More
How To Find The Right Loan For Your Small Business
Nationwide, nearly 8 million small businesses owned by people of color, and 11.3 million women-owned small businesses, are powering their communities. But entrepreneurs of color and women entrepreneurs, particularly those 40 years old and younger, struggle to obtain the credit needed to start up their businesses or keep them going. Women entrepreneurs start companies with 50 percent less capital than male entrepreneurs, and minority business owners are denied loans at nearly three times the rate of non-minority owners. On top of that, the financial crisis that shook the entire national economy was damaging for small businesses in general, but especially small businesses owned by people of color, as large banks cut back on lending to small businesses. In the wake of the recession, a plethora of online lenders are promising small business owners “quick and easy” cash, without disclosing the hidden fees, high interest rates, and prepayment penalties that can … Read More
PCV Talks With Seacoast Bank As Part of Their Expert Interview Series
This month, PCV was asked to sit down with Seacoast Bank to talk about the state of small business, and what CDFIs like ours are doing to drive more financial and human capital to Main Street, where the real job creators are. Here’s what he had to say: Tell us about Pacific Community Ventures. What do you do? Pacific Community Ventures is a nonprofit social enterprise that engages small businesses, investors, and policymakers to build an economy that works for everyone. We achieve our mission in two ways. First, we provide small businesses with access to the capital and mentorship they need to grow and create quality jobs for working people in low- and middle-income communities. Second, we work with impact investors to help define, measure and communicate the social outcomes of their investments to stimulate more investment in underserved communities. Why are you passionate about empowering small business owners and … Read More
PCV Receives $350,000 From Wells Fargo to Support Diverse Small Businesses
We’re thrilled to announce that Pacific Community Ventures will be able to offer capital paired with free advising to dozens of underserved small businesses in Alameda and Contra Costa counties thanks to a $350,000 Wells Fargo grant. “Increasing access to capital is vital for the success of small businesses,” said Micky Randhawa, EVP and president of the Greater Bay region for Wells Fargo. “Through our Diverse Community Capital program, we work with community organizations such as Pacific Community Ventures to help small businesses start, stabilize, and grow.” African American, Hispanic, Asian and female small business borrowers face even more difficult access-to-capital challenges and often lack the guidance to develop strong loan applications. PCV’s borrowers are assigned a pro bono small business financial advisor to help complete a strong loan application and have access to free-one-on-one technical assistance throughout the life of the loan, filling a major lending gap in small … Read More
An Update On the Impact Investing Policy Collaborative
2015 was a watershed year for impact investing. We saw the launch of new funds, several new companies and initiatives, and most importantly, more governments committed to directing more private capital for public purpose. As founders of the IIPC, we especially laud the efforts made in policy and practice, catalyzed by the leadership of entities such as the Social Impact Investment Taskforce, established under the UK’s presidency of the G8, and its affiliate National Advisory Boards. Closer to home in the U.S., the U.S Government Department of Labor’s new guidance on “economically targeted investments” for pension funds came as a welcome move, giving coverage to fund managers that consider the social and environmental impact of their investments while fulfilling their fiduciary duty to beneficiaries. In 2011, when PCV and IRI launched the IIPC, we aimed to bring together policymakers and practitioners committed to policy innovation that promotes investing for social and … Read More
Thank You For Investing In Good Jobs
Thank you for helping to make last week’s annual luncheon a great one! We thank you all so much for your support. Congratulations to Dave Talach — our 2016 PCV Champion. We also want to extend a special thank you to our panelists, sponsors, and all of the small business owners who showcased and donated their time, goods, and services. You can visit them all online at La Plazita Prechool, FAZE Apparel, Kainbigan, Bread SRSLY, J. Miller Flowers and Gifts, Nona Lim, Proyecto Diaz Coffee, and Light FX Photography. You can read more about our vision for an economy that works for everyone over on Huffington Post. And visit our website to read and share our first-of-its-kind report on what — exactly — defines a quality job. If you weren’t able to make a donation at the lunch, but would still like to support our work, you can donate on our website. Use your … Read More