Bringing Together Private and Public Stakeholders to Support Local Businesses
10.27.2020
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LISC StoriesEconomic Development
The world is changing. During the past months, the pandemic has challenged even our most basic assumptions and forced us to find a new normal. However, not only has day to day changed, but also remarkably, how we interact with one another. It seems a new sense of community is developing as people, and even businesses, come together. At LISC LA, we have been witness to an outpouring of support from our partners who have a desire to aid the people and businesses most affected by the pandemic. Most recently, Wells Fargo, a long-standing LISC LA partner, provided a generous grant for pandemic response to be deployed in Los Angeles.
With the grant from Wells Fargo, LISC LA has been able to provide local businesses with pandemic relief through two essential elements of community building: capital and capacity-building. Both are essential at this time — capital as the economy has come to a halt, and capacity-building as businesses learn to adapt to new regulations and safety guidelines. For the former, LISC LA distributed a total of $150,000 in grants to small businesses through our Keeping Our Shops on the Block program. The grants went to 40 “Main Street” mom-and-pop businesses in Los Angeles and Orange County that make our neighborhoods unique.
When it comes to capacity-building, LISC LA focused on both small businesses and local governments. LISC LA released a toolkit on adapting to the pandemic for small businesses and a series of 5 seminars to accompany them. The toolkit and webinars featured information on emergency financial resources and creative ways businesses can pivot, market, and adapt in the pandemic with 250 small businesses attending. At the same time, LISC LA also released a toolkit for local governments and four webinars in which LISC LA Executive Director Tunua Thrash-Ntuk was joined by esteemed speakers for a conversation on pandemic response. Through the toolkit and webinar series, LISC LA and the speakers highlighted best practices and strategies for local governments to support small businesses during this time.
The first of the four webinars “Supporting Small Businesses During COVID-19” focused on the toolkit developed by LISC LA and highlighted practices such as deferring payments, providing technical assistance, and investing with low-cost capital for local businesses. Team members Tunua Thrash-Ntuk and Emma Kloppenburg went into detail on all seven points of the toolkit before being joined by representatives from Dine 11, LA Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, and the LA County Workforce Development, Aging, and Community Services (WDACS). The guests fueled a dynamic conversation on empowering small businesses through food procurement, focusing on the many successes of food delivery programs for healthcare workers, home-bound seniors, and other vulnerable residents.
In a true spirit of community, the second webinar brought together private company leaders and public sector officials for a consultation on the importance of “Private-Public Partnerships.” Speakers from WDACS, Facebook, City of LA EWDD, and Verizon delved into how they have provided resources to small businesses by bringing together the public and private sector in relief efforts and focusing on an equitable response for underserved communities. In the third webinar “Using Data to Support Small Businesses,” Marisa Raya of the City of Oakland delved into how the Bay Area city brought together stakeholders including students, local community organizations, and CDFIs to survey small businesses and better provide services. The fourth and final webinar concluded the series with a discussion on “Leveraging Local Assets” to create community support for local businesses, featuring LISC LA’s own ASCEND LA and the Kiva Accelerator Fund.
The series for local governments was unique in bringing together private and public stakeholders to discuss supporting local businesses, but as we move into the future conversations like these will be increasingly important. The pandemic has brought together individuals, businesses, and governments, and this new sense of community may be a defining feature of the emerging era. It is clear, we must come together not only to share resources but our knowledge as we approach and develop a new normal. Wells Fargo made it possible for LISC LA to accomplish this by supporting local businesses with grants and launching toolkits and webinar series for both business owners and local governments. LISC LA believes building community is at the center of our pandemic relief efforts, it is how we become stronger and the future of Los Angeles.
