By Bill Taft, SVP of Economic Development

As LISC celebrates the extraordinary contributions of small businesses this week, we are taking stock of how our grantmaking and other support touched 16,000 small businesses across the country, and what they have told us they need to survive and flourish going forward. Affordable capital and technical assistance top the list. We’ve heard them, loud and clear, and are responding with increased investment, like a new partnership with the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready initiative.

A new LISC brief offers insight and guidance to stakeholders looking to forge robust small business ecosystems in historically under-invested communities, the same communities that have also borne the brunt of the pandemic's economic fallout.

By Bill Taft

Since the onset of the pandemic, LISC has equipped 16,000 small business owners with relief and resilience grants. But to foster opportunity and long-term resiliency for all entrepreneurs who confront entrenched inequities, including people of color, women, immigrants and refugees, and people with lower incomes and wealth, we need a robust universe of small business “ecosystems”: the network of capital, services, and supports that every enterprise needs to get on its feet and grow.