In a new blog, LISC CEO Lisa Glover takes a closer look at LISC’s innovative collaboration with Abbott to fuel diverse suppliers in the healthcare field—supporting inclusive gains in jobs, health and family incomes as well. “All told, the program is a pro-growth, pro-equity model for small business financing that is designed to have a long-term impact well beyond the work being done today,” she writes.
When it comes to conversations about community investing, plans are often described by silos of work: housing or economic development, education or safety, health or jobs.
Certainly, the specifics of each of those are critically important. But, from an impact perspective, rarely do any of them stand alone. When we connect the dots, we stop talking about projects or programs and begin talking about strong families, businesses and communities—places where everyone has a fair chance to succeed.
That same comprehensive view of equity and opportunity is at the heart of LISC’s new partnership with Abbott, the global healthcare company, to invest in diverse suppliers. Together, LISC and Abbott are directing $37.5 million to fuel small businesses owned by people from diverse backgrounds—including people of color and women—so they can grow and better compete for corporate contracts in the healthcare field.
The program is called the Abbott-LISC Initiative to Support Diverse Businesses in Health, and it is a model for expanding work around supplier diversity. It will provide growth capital and loans to small businesses working to help manufacture diagnostics, medical devices, nutrition and other health products, while also connecting them to technical assistance and coaching to build their capacity for the future.
As details of the new program came together, I was particularly struck by comments from businessowners on why the program is so important. “There are tons of studies out there that show that diversity of thinking, diversity of people, diversity in just about any aspect of your business goes directly to the bottom line,” said Karl C. Johnson, Jr., president and chief financial officer of Detroit-based Diversified Chemical Technologies, in a new video about the program. “As more companies understand that, there's not only a social imperative but there's a business imperative behind it.”
Imperative. That certainly is the right word to describe this work.
Half of businesses owned by women and people of color are not able to access the capital they need to grow. And over the last two years, those challenges have been exacerbated by the pandemic, as many of those same businesses found it difficult to access relief funds or meet their broader financing needs.
Those capital gaps have a negative ripple effect on owners, workers, their families and their local economies—not to mention the well-being of the fields in which they work.
The Abbott-LISC collaboration directly responds to that troubling disparity. It is a jobs program and a health program, especially regarding the social determinants of health. It expands family incomes and builds wealth for the next generation. It expands the supply chain, so the health industry is better able to meet the needs of its patients, clients and customers. And it makes our financing system fairer, as it fuels local economies.
All told, the program is a pro-growth, pro-equity model for small business financing that is designed to have a long-term impact well beyond the work being done today.
Abbott’s leadership in this has been particularly important. Their team saw an opportunity to change the outlook for diverse suppliers in the health field, and in doing so is sending a strong message to the rest of the marketplace that this work is both socially valuable and economically viable.
This is LISC’s largest collaboration on supplier diversity to date, and it will not be the last. It is a growing aspect of our work to support vibrant small businesses as an anchor of economic opportunity and inclusive growth.
It builds on our more than $215 million in small business relief grants over the past two years, our $250 million Black Economic Development Fund, and our work to expand the national Entrepreneurs of Color Fund—and that’s on top of 40 years of lending to business owners and nonprofit operators in communities that might otherwise not have access to affordable capital, particularly communities of color.
All of which is to say, this isn’t one line of work. It’s a piece of the broader strategy for both LISC and Abbott to catalyze opportunity and growth, so that race, class, gender and geography do not determine who succeeds and who does not.
I hope you will check on more information on the Abbott-LISC initiative, and we look forward to sharing more about supplier diversity in the weeks to come.
Lisa L. Glover, Former LISC CEO
Lisa L. Glover served as LISC’s CEO from February 2021 through September 2023. She wasn a member of the LISC National Board of Directors from 2010 through 2023. An active community leader, she previously served as the Chair of LISC Milwaukee’s Local Advisory Committee. Lisa is a former Executive Vice President at U.S. Bank, retiring in March, 2020 after a 33 year career that included leadership roles in Community Affairs, risk management, and process improvement. Lisa holds a BBA in Corporate Finance from Iowa State University and a Master of Library and Information Science from University of Wisconsin.
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