Category: Small Businesses
-
Beyond the Bottom Line: Innovations in Measuring Small Business Lending
By Tamra Thetford, VP of Impact Evaluation Small business lending is crucial in America as it fuels economic growth, job creation, and community development. Small businesses build wealth, particularly for underserved borrowers, by generating income, accumulating assets, and fostering financial stability. Mission-driven lenders play a vital role by providing access to capital and financial services…
-
Supporting Small Businesses:The Critical Role of Community Banking
Small businesses are the lifeblood of local economies, driving innovation, creating jobs, and building community identity. However, they often face significant challenges—chief among them is access to affordable financing (source: sba.gov). This is where community banks step in, playing a critical role in helping small businesses thrive, fostering local economic growth, and building resilience. Small…
-
Building Legacy and Opportunity: Cory Elliott’s Journey with CMT LLC and St. Louis Community Credit Union
Born, raised and educated in St. Louis, Cory Elliott has always been dedicated to serving her beloved community with excellence and creating opportunities for others. After completing her undergraduate and graduate education, she embarked on a career in healthcare, working as a hospital administrator. Her team supported the facilities and construction departments, an experience that…
-
Meet Brooklyn Packers, The Co-Op Connecting Small Farms To The Big Apple
Steph Wiley has been an entrepreneur almost as long as he’s been a New Yorker—and he’s been a New Yorker his entire life. At first, Steph owned a dog-walking business in lower Manhattan for more than 10 years before starting a community organizing business with his partner. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Steph is…
-
Meet Piedmont Community Services, The Behavioral Health Service Provider Taking Care of Its Community
Greg Preston always wanted to return to his hometown and give back to his community. At first, Greg worked at the local Department of Social Services. Now, 25 years later? Greg is the organizations executive director.
-
Investing In Black-owned Small Businesses To Close the Racial Wealth Gap
There is a staggering disparity between the wealth of Black communities and their white counterparts in the United States where wealth is the difference between financial and social mobility and terminal economic insecurity. In 2019, Black households, on average, had 14.5 percent of the wealth of the average white household. This disparity is reflected throughout…
-
Why CDFIs Often Create Better Lending Outcomes for Small Businesses
Small businesses that need financing often find themselves at a crossroads: apply for a traditional bank loan that’s difficult to get but has lower-interest rates or an online loan that’s quickly approved but can end up being inordinately more expensive in the long run. But some business owners don’t realize that there’s an additional option:…
-
Visualizing Your Impact
Creating Success Stories Seeing the impact of your investment is a persistent challenge for impact investors. It can be difficult to take abstract metrics like dollars invested or jobs created and visualize what that means for individuals and the communities they live in. We created this short video to highlight how impactful your investment in…
-
Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Women-Owned Firms
The Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Kansas City just released a joint report on credit access and financial performance trends for women-owned small businesses across the United States. One Big Takeaway, There’s still a huge gap between genders when it comes to small business ownership:
-
Pandia Health – An inspiring story of a female entrepreneur that is improving other women’s lives
The Kind of Company, and Entrepreneur, That Inspires Us At CNote, we a believe in underdogs. Our mission is to deliver financial empowerment, both to savers, and to financially underserved communities. Your investment in CNote drives community development projects, and provides the funding female and minority entrepreneurs rely on to get their businesses off the…