Financial Security Network Newsletter: August 2023
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Spotlight
Building the Impact of Business: An SBE Write Out!
Through the Strengthening Black Entrepreneurship (SBE) Initiative, Prosperity Now worked with high-performing CDFIs (Community Development Financial Institutions) to understand the barriers for Black entrepreneurs around Financial Management, Data Management, and Technical Assistance. The findings from interviews with these organizations uncovered highly intertwined, complex, and dependent factors that affect their ability to serve and support a growing number of entrepreneurs and small businesses. Factors such as additional borrower requirements around risk mitigation, to collecting lending data without supports of a CRM (customer relationship management system) and lack of compensation for accounting, business management or other Technical Assistance services are all connected and influenced by funding sources.
Access to capital influences the amount of loans or technical assistance a CDFI can distribute and provide to small businesses to secure their success. Moreover, capital creates the baseline of operational support building toward long-term organizational growth. These barriers create a system enabling mid-to-large CDFIs to thrive. However, it leaves gaps in growth opportunities for smaller organizations by placing stipulations on funding and reporting.
The strategies these CDFIs use and recommend help work around limitations to create opportunities that capitalize on their strengths, remove administrative barriers, and show how their services connect to real short and long-term change. CDFIs are embedded in the collective improvement of their communities, and collaborative partnerships are a necessary factor in accessing the resources they need. By leaning into BIPOC serving CDFIs as subject matter experts, funders can alleviate the self-inflicted restrictions from data reporting requirements and instead better understand the unique local ecosystem needs for infrastructure building.
A key lesson from this initiative is that funders and investors in this work should find opportunities to streamline their collection of data and metrics tracking, provide autonomy to providers who know how to work best with their client base and invest in the operational capacity of CDFIs to create scalability. Understanding that impact comes from building equity instead of data collection shifts a system to prioritize measuring capacity development over unrealistic expectations to a place where real change is possible.
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Resources and Publications
Scaling Support for The Enterprising Black Orlando Fund: Key Insights and Recommendations | Prosperity Now
This report highlights key insights gained through a yearlong landscape assessment where local nonprofits, small business owners and funders were engaged to discuss the challenges, needs, and opportunities that the Enterprising Black Orlando fund could play a role in support of Black-led nonprofits and Black-owned businesses in Central Florida.
The CDFI Playbook | Prosperity Now
Working with 5 CDFIs, Prosperity Now developed a brand-new playbook to support Black and BIPOC Entrepreneurship. The Playbook is focused on new challenges, opportunities, and tools for CDFIs to provide support for these businesses.
Work Requirements Don’t Work | Prosperity Now
A new change to the SNAP program threatens access for an estimated 750,000 adults by expanding work requirements – read our blog to find out more about the change to SNAP and how it endangers so many Americans.
How to Lead With Your Values When Talking About Financial Well-Being | Prosperity Now
In this resource, Prosperity Now outlines how advocates within the economic justice movement can connect with decision-makers and other key stakeholders by identifying the underlying “why” and leading with core values.
Flawed House GOP Tax Package Chooses Wealthy Shareholders Over Children and Families and the Fight Against Climate Change | Center on Budget & Policy Priorities
The bill prioritizes giving new windfall tax benefits to wealthy corporate shareholders over the needs of our future and communities today. Read more about these tax law changes and how they impact future generations.
The New Wealth Agenda: A Blueprint for Building a Future of Inclusive Wealth | Aspen Institute
In this Aspen Institute Financial Security Program publication, authors argue that by 2050, we must increase by ten-fold the wealth of households of color and those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution in the U.S.
In the News
Understanding Latino wealth to address disparities and design better policies| Brookings
In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, Latino voting behavior will be widely discussed, as Latino voting patterns are remarkably nuanced and vary by region, age, gender, and national origin, among other factors. Candidates, campaign consultants, journalists, and policymakers should expect economic issues to be a top concern for Latinos, as in previous election cycles. In light of this, it is worth examining Latinos’ current economic condition in the United States.
Affirmative Action Ruling Could Have an Effect on DEI Programs in the Workplace | BenefitsPro
Due to the striking of Affirmative Action in college campuses, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in the workplace may be opened up to lawsuits and challenges.
How the Child Tax Credit Became a Partisan Issue | The Soapbox
For many years, the Child Tax Credit or CTC was an entirely bipartisan subject; now, that consensus could be coming to an end. Find out more about the effort to reach across the aisle and what that could mean for millions of kids.
109-Year-Old Survivor Of Tulsa Race Massacre Continues To Call for Justice | Black Star News
In “Don’t Let Them Bury My Story,” Viola Ford Fletcher, now 109, shares her firsthand account of the Tulsa Race Massacre and calls on all Americans to never forget the horrific events of 1921.
Upcoming Events & Opportunities
Job Opening: Director, Office of Community and Economic Development | Department of Treasury
