Equitable Pathways to Small Business Recovery: An All-Hands Approach

Next City and the LISC Institute hosted a webinar on how local governments and partners can help advance an equitable small business recovery, grounded in Boston as a case study.

Overview

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on small businesses, with potentially lasting effects. Small businesses need support in the months ahead, but more intentional, equitable recovery strategies are especially required. This is because, like so many other aspects of the pandemic, the burden on small businesses fell disproportionately on people of color. In this webinar, LISC and Next City presented a new playbook, Equitable Pathways to Small Business Recovery: An All-Hands Approach, which lays out a framework and contextualized strategies for developing and implementing small business support initiatives in ways that advance equitable economic outcomes. Panelists from LISC Research and Evaluation, LISC Boston, the City of Boston's Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, and the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts discussed how successful small business support initiatives have centered the needs of BIPOC entrepreneurs and those who historically have experienced barriers and disadvantaged access to resources in Boston, and how this framework will guide their small business recovery efforts in the wake of the pandemic.

View recording

Moderator

Lucas Grindley, Executive Director, Next City

Presenters

Patricia Voltolini, Senior Research Associate, LISC
Karen Kelleher, Executive Director, LISC Boston
Segun Idowu, Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, City of Boston
Kareem Kimodya, Co-Policy Lead, Black Economic Council of Massachusetts

Additional Reading

Strategies to Promote Affordable Commercial Space in Cities

See more resources from

Massachusetts

visit the local office's website