Please join LISC and the Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) for a panel discussion about how lenders are deploying flexible capital and supportive technical assistance programs to help small businesses, particularly makers and manufacturers of color — both before and during COVID.
This work comes out of UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital cohort, a group of community-based organizations who are committed to addressing the inequitable flow of capital to makers and manufacturers of color. In May 2020, UMA released “Forging Fairness,” a series which looks in-depth at each of the Pathways cohort organizations and the people behind them, describing what makes their work so unique, alongside the life events and experiences that led the people behind them to get into community investment.
While we put this report together before COVID took hold and released it as racial justice uprisings began, these lending practitioners have always been – and continue to be – on the front lines of our economic development response teams. The past months have made the importance of their role even more clear, as we’ve seen businesses owned by Black people and other owners of color be systemically left out of many of the relief efforts.
In this discussion, we will be joined by Pathways cohort members to discuss topics such as:
- At a time when businesses are both risk-averse and capital-desperate, how is the pandemic impacting lending and technical assistance strategies? What products or programs have been most successful for manufacturers of color?
- How is this moment affecting the very non-profit lending organizations that serve the small business community? How can community-based lenders and other local institutions remain resilient in the midst of a crisis? What do these organizations want to see from their partners (from local to federal) for them to remain an active part of the local landscape?
- How are community-based lenders shifting engagement strategies with clients and communities? How have these organizations approached the changing dynamics of COVID and the uprisings?
Panelists will include three Pathways cohort and advisory board members:
- Steve Hall, Senior Director, LISC Economic Development Lending
- Lars Kuehnow, Program Officer, LISC
- Karleen Porcena, Vice President Relationship Manager, Berkshire Bank
The event will be facilitated by Elmer Moore (Executive Director, Scale Up Milwaukee), joined by Rachel McIntosh (Senior Opportunity Investment Officer, LISC) and Lee Wellington (Executive Director, UMA).