May 10, 2021
Small businesses and nonprofits across Delaware can now get low-interest loans of up to $100,000 and free business support from the Southern Opportunity and Resilience Fund as they work to recover from the pandemic.
Companies and agencies across Delaware can begin applying for very low-interest loans of up to $100,000 and free business support through the SOAR Fund, a new program created by a diverse group of community lenders aimed at helping small businesses and nonprofits navigate and rebuild from the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau Small Business Pulse Survey, 47 percent of Delaware small businesses have less than two months’ cash on hand, and one-third of small businesses in the state expect to seek capital in the next six months.
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As the owner of a custom framing store, Lurita “LB” Brown knows which objects her customers feel strongly enough to put behind glass. She noticed a shift when people were stuck at home during the pandemic.
“They re looking around and saying, ‘Oh, I remember that photograph, what did I do with it?’”she recalled. “They go to the car, ‘Oh, the glass was broken.’” Other clients found works of art they d gotten from relatives and decided to have them reframed.
These works of art weren’t all just for nicer backgrounds on Zoom. Brown saw similar behavior after the September 11th attacks.
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When Julissa Gutierrez was appointed New York’s chief diversity officer last summer, she was tasked with registering more MWBEs and reaching the state’s ambitious 30% MWBE contract utilization goal – which New York nearly did, with the state announcing in December that 29.51% of its contracts had been awarded to firms owned by women or minorities in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. An expert on Latino issues and civic engagement, Gutierrez previously held key roles with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
2. Jonnel Doris & Dynishal Gross
Commissioner; Deputy Commissioner, Division of Economic and Financial Opportunity, New York City Small Business Services
Editorial Roundup: Ohio The Associated Press
Editorial: H2Ohio needs assured funding to protect Ohio’s precious water resources
The H2Ohio fund created by Gov. Mike DeWine and legislators in 2019 is a critical long-term work in progress. It aims, most prominently, at reducing, and eventually ending, dangerous toxic algal blooms in western Lake Erie by creating more local accountability on phosphorus-reduction plans, more farmer buy-in, improved monitoring of streams and rivers, widened use of agricultural best practices and the creation of new wetlands and other buffers.
But that’s far from H2Ohio’s totality. The program also seeks to ensure that both Ohioans and the state’s priceless freshwater resources are protected amid soaring water infrastructure costs, as price tags climb for lead service-line replacements, mandated septic-system upgrades, and modernized drinking-water and wastewater treatment plants.
LISC names Jorge Cruz to expand community investments, drive economic opportunity in Newark
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NEWARK, N.J., May 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ One of New Jersey s top impact investing strategists is set to take the helm of a leading community development organization, with ambitious plans to expand local investments in affordable housing, economic development, health, education and jobs.
Jorge Cruz, a 30-year veteran of community investing who most recently served as chief external affairs officer with New Jersey Community Capital (NJCC), is the new executive director of LISC Greater Newark, the local arm of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). LISC is one of the nation s largest community development organizations, with some $24 billion invested nationwide, including more than $151 million in Newark.