How cool is this? Today LISC announced the 50 Black and Latinx-owned small businesses that received $10,000 grants from The Coramino Fund, a grant program of LISC and Kevin Hart’s Gran Coramino™ Tequila. The program provides vital resources to entrepreneurs who have historically faced racial barriers to capital that have limited their ability to grow. Meet the 50 grant recipients!
LISC, in partnership with five other participating lenders, recently closed on $3 million in predevelopment financing to the Black-led developer of Nubian Square Ascends, a mixed-use redevelopment of the Blair Lot, a vacant City-owned parcel in the heart of the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.
Entrepreneurs Nikia Londy and Baron Langston saved their business and four of their retail neighbors from displacement, creating what they like to call the “first Black-owned block in Hyde Park.” As owners of Intriguing Hair, they purchased the building their store is in with subsidy from LISC and the City of Boston, and a below-market purchase price from seller, Historic Boston, Inc.
Silvana Bastante
After years of green workforce research and planning, LISC Boston launched Bridges to Green Jobs in Spring 2022. The first cohort of graduates completed the program in late May and most have already been placed in jobs with partners.
The webinar and panel discussion by Next City & LISC, featuring leaders and perspectives from Boston, shares how local governments and partners can help advance an equitable small business recovery.
Shop small this holiday season with these small business holiday gift guides featuring small businesses in Massachusetts.
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.