Helping Small Businesses Build Resiliency

By William Taft, Senior Vice President of Economic Development

In times of crisis, access to emergency capital can make or break a small business, especially those owned and run by people of color, women and those serving under-invested communities. A blog by William Taft, who heads LISC's economic development work, explores how a partnership with Synchrony and Synchrony Foundation is helping more business owners recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and build resiliency.

10.22.2020 - LISC Stories

In times of economic crisis, small business owners know well that ready access to emergency capital can make the difference between riding the tide, and having to shut their doors permanently. This is especially true for small businesses run by people of color, women and those serving under-invested communities—entrepreneurs who often must manage their enterprises with narrow profit margins and minimal access to mainstream credit streams.

As the pandemic and its economic fallout wear on, LISC is working hard to get that kind of fast, flexible capital out the door to entrepreneurs who need it most. And thanks to a critical partnership with Synchrony and the Synchrony Foundation, which has committed $2 million to LISC, our small business grants will help more business owners recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and build resiliency. Synchrony has a long history of supporting small businesses, and that ethos dovetails with LISC’s mission of investing to help nurture healthy local economies in historically under-resourced communities across the country.

We’re happy to report that LISC has distributed the first phase of emergency grants made possible by that funding to more than 60 minority-, women-, and veteran-owned small businesses. The recipients of these emergency grants represent a range of industries, from health care to personal care, landscaping to trucking, among many more.

Each grantee has an extraordinary story about how they have persevered through these challenging times, and how the grant funds will help them rehire employees and cover expenses from rent to supplies. Here are three of them.

Lovely’s Boutique & Beauty Supply

Barely a year ago, the horizon looked bright for Nasshon “Lovely” Thompson, and 2019 felt like the apex of her 20-year journey in America. Thompson’s business, Lovely’s Boutique & Beauty Supply, was thriving at its location on Main Street in Bridgeport, CT. But 2020 has brought on the kind of challenges no one could have anticipated. COVID-19 shut Lovely’s doors through the spring, and even after the shop reopened, business has been troublingly slow. “[COVID] has affected my community a great deal,” she says. “There’s nowhere to go, and we’re not getting dressed. It’s only the nurses and the CNAs that go out, and they wear scrubs.”

Thompson’s instinct for business and fashion goes back to her childhood in St. Catherine, Jamaica, where she helped her mother by sewing in her clothing factory. She immigrated to Queens, NY, in 2000, later bringing her two oldest children to the States, attaining legal immigration status, and having a third child, now 13, in Queens. She started Lovely’s there, and also earned a licensed practical nurse degree and worked in various health care jobs.

In 2017, Thompson moved the beauty shop to Connecticut, expanded its services, and flourished. As the pandemic grinds on, though, she has had to put her LPN degree to use, and is working other freelance jobs to make ends meet. Still, Thompson is very optimistic that the $10,000 grant from Synchrony through LISC will help her cover rent, lights, and insurance--a bridge to the day when business picks up on the strength of women with places to go and statements to make. As a new sign she’d ordered was being installed on her storefront, Thompson worried about paying the balance due on it—until she realized the grant money was hitting her account that very day. “I thought, thank God for that.”

Quality Comprehensive Health Center

The past several months have demonstrated the critical role of essential workers, as well as of critical organizations like Quality Comprehensive Health Center, in keeping people healthy during the pandemic. Owner and CEO Lisa Wigfall launched Quality 16 years ago, a response to her realization that groups in the community — women living with HIV, for example — were severely underserved. “If you are broke and you don’t have a penny to your name, we will provide you with quality, comprehensive health care. We help every person that comes through our doors,” says CFO Priscilla Cunningham.

The Center is rooted in the West End of Charlotte, NC, a concentration of historic African American communities that today experience many of the conditions that lead to poorer health outcomes, from the stress of poverty to pollution from nearby highways and industrial facilities.

Demand for the Center’s care has spiked in recent months and Wigfall is determined to help as many people as possible, which puts more stress on its 40 employees as they work to meet requests while also donning protective gear and reaching more clients via socially distanced telehealth. “We are using the funds to alleviate budgeting concerns and help move the organization forward,” said Wigfall.

MicroNikko PMU Studio & Beauty Bar

Back in 2006, Janell “Nikki” Walker, trained as cosmetologist, but she abandoned that profession until a family crisis showed her that beauty care can be a healing art, and her calling was born.

The catalyst was a diagnosis, several years ago, of stage 3 breast cancer. Walker underwent numerous surgeries, radiation, and chemo. The very same summer, her teenage son Johnny was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and also had to endure a grueling round of treatments.

Fighting for her life and that of her child, Walker felt the last thing she should be thinking about was her appearance. But the loss of her hair, eyebrows, and lashes, along with her healthy skin tone, was painful. “It was very difficult for me to find beauty in myself,” Walker recalls. She began experimenting with skin-care products, make-up, and false lashes. She even found a cosmetologist to treat Johnny with micro-blading, a non-permanent application of pigment. “We got him new eyebrows, and that was a game-changer for him,” Walker says.

In the autumn of 2019, Walker opened MicroNikko PMU Studio & Beauty Bar in Charlotte, NC. Her vision: to offer permanent makeup services, waxing, facials and more in an atmosphere of deluxe pampering. But then the pandemic hit, and MicroNikko was forced to close from March through May. By late August, revenues were still way down and for Walker, the emergency grant is coming at a critical time. “The funds will allow my two aestheticians to work in the shop without paying suite fees until everybody gets back on their feet,” she explained. As she navigates this unprecedented time, she is relying on the personal grit and gratitude that helped her get through cancer. “I learned that the things that we feel like we’re supposed to have in life, they’re not given. They’re blessings,” said Walker.