This holiday season, support LISC small business borrowers and find the perfect gift for everyone on your list! All of the businesses featured here have received LISC capital to acquire their location, hire new staff, or increase inventory to help their business grow.

In this report, the LISC team behind the innovative Entrepreneurs of Color Fund reflects on how the fund has expanded access to capital for underserved owners and communities.

By Steve Hall, LISC Vice President of Economic Development

The team behind the Entrepreneurs of Color Fund (EOCF) recently took a look back at positive outcomes and experience working with CDFIs to expand access to capital for underserved businesses. "It is clearly possible to successfully implement inclusive lending policies,” writes LISC’s Steve Hall, who leads the EOCF work. "But it requires a different way of thinking about the process and a willingness to step back from traditional notions about risk."

LISC is bringing its successful Entrepreneurs of Color Fund (EOCF) to Miami, to help get growth capital to diverse small business owners who historically have been shut out of conventional lending streams. EOCF, which currently operates in 10 U.S. cities, will partner with four Dade County economic development nonprofits to connect Miami-area entrepreneurs to the dollars and technical assistance they need to flourish and create jobs.

LISC’s Entrepreneurs of Color Fund (EOCF) brought together lenders and partners to discuss the best strategies for leveraging capital and expertise to support our communities.

In a wide-ranging Q+A with Philanthropy News Digest, LISC President Denise Scott describes how the organization has pivoted and refined its strategies to support communities in the face of market shifts, climate disasters, a pandemic and countless systemic barriers to equity. What we need, says Scott, is “creative financing guided by collaboration with local people who are working toward lasting solutions—if we are going to really advance equity in this challenging time.”

The LISC-managed EOCF is continuing to expand its geographic reach, launching innovative new efforts in NOLA with support from JPMorgan Chase, NewCorp, Inc., and TruFund Financial Services. The fund "will nurture a diverse landscape of small businesses that reflect New Orleans’ rich culture and history,” said Steve Hall, LISC vice president.

A new impact investment fund is designed to help CDFIs ramp up local lending to minority business owners. The fund will purchase participations in previously originated loans to minority-owned enterprises from designated CDFI partners to free up capital for additional lending to entrepreneurs of color.