Anatomy of a Small Biz Partnership with Kevin Hart

Steve Hall, LISC’s vp for small business lending, recently joined entrepreneurship columnist Gene Marks on the Paychex Thrive podcast to describe how LISC’s partnership with Kevin Hart and his Gran Coramino tequila brand gets grants to Black and Latinx small biz owners—and why that’s so important. Part of the beauty of the collaboration, said Hall, is how Hart puts his all into creating opportunity for others, “even through his comedy.”

By Christina Travers & Kathleen Keefe

In a new ImpactAlpha blog, Christina Travers and Kathleen Keefe discuss LISC’s recent experience in the capital markets and what it might signal about investor engagement with CDFIs. “Is this environment forcing investors to step back from community development finance? Or, are they willing to respond with “catalytic capital” that specifically meets this moment?”

Route Fifty, a publication that targets state and local government leaders, reports on the extraordinary impact of Detroit’s zero percent home repair loan program, which LISC has been running since 2015. To date, the program has helped nearly 700 families make critical repairs to their homes and is, at its root, “a Black homeownership preservation tool for really intergenerational wealth-building strategy,” says LISC’s Damon Thompson, who is quoted alongside LISC President Denise Scott.

LISC Phoenix program officer David Longoria sat down for lunch at Authentic EthioAfrica with owner Anduale Hassan, who emigrated from Ethiopia in the 1990s with a vision for creating a community space—and two decades of experience in the food business to help make it a reality.

LISC's CEO Maurice A. Jones is quoted in a Wall Street Journal article on the challenges of ensuring PPP loans are accessible to entrepreneurs of color and those in underinvested communities. Data is a key to understanding who's benefiting, says Jones, and LISC's PPP program has targeted underserved borrowers who may not have traditional banking relationships.