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Investors Want to Align Their Dollars with Racial Justice Demands

Oscar Perry Abello

September 08, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

Investors are using their clout to call for racial justice through the investment consulting firm Activest. The firm is attracting millions of dollars from companies that want to make fiscal justice investments. In a bid to use investments to fuel the grassroots criminal justice movement, Activest is alerting municipal bond investors when the city of Chicago uses those bonds for police brutality settlements. Activest has lined up $100 million from investors who want to make fiscal justice investments through municipal bonds which would then allow them to have a say over how it is, or is not, spent.

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This Nonprofit Helps Small Business Aid Go Where it Usually Doesn't

Oscar Perry Abello

May 21, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

An American nonprofit called the Community Reinvestment Fund expands access to small business loans by partnering with almost two dozen groups across the country to set up and scale up their community development lending. Founded in 1988, the group essentially takes on the risk of a SBA license so that others could benefit from their license. They created an online platform called Spark that redesigned the user interface of the existing loan processor platform to better facilitate the exchange of money. They have now supported loans for 1,000 communities across 49 states.

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Formerly Incarcerated Women Launch Worker-Owned Food Business During COVID-19

Oscar Perry Abello

May 14, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

ChiFresh Kitchen is a worker-owned cooperative that gives formerly incarcerated people an income, and a second chance, under a corporate structure that attacks high unemployment from the ground up. Formed as a catering business on Chicago's West Side just as the pandemic shutdown began, ChiFresh shifted its intended clientele from nursing homes and schools to food-relief programs distributing free meals. The co-op, initially formed by mostly black women with hopes of scaling up to about 100 worker-owners, echoes the sorts of enterprises formed in response to Jim Crow restrictions of the past.

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Cooperative Connection Gets PPE from Appalachia to the Bronx

Oscar Perry Abello

May 05, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States

A home health care cooperative, based in NY, turned to a worker-owned cut and sew cooperative, based in NC, to produce masks for their employees when they were unable to source them elsewhere. The cost of masks and gloves became too high for Cooperative Home Care Associates, the largest worker-owned cooperative in the country. And hospitals and nursing homes were first in line for government assistance securing PPE. The textile cooperative has sent 500 more affordable and reusable masks a week for the home health workers and hopes to double that to 1000 per week soon.

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Community Development Lenders Turning to Fintech for a Boost During Crisis

Oscar Perry Abello

April 30, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States

CNote has provided a source of funding for federally certified Community Development Financial Institutions by pooling cash from foundations, bigger banks, philanthropists, and donor-advised funds to counter the lack of available cash flow experienced by CDFIs, which are lenders but not banks. Federal COVID-19 funding set aside $30 billion specifically for CDFIs that overwhelmingly lend to women- and minority-owned businesses, which face persistent racial and gender biases and are unable to successfully tap into lending and grants such as the Paycheck Protection Program through traditional lenders.

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To Keep the Economy Afloat, the Fed Turns to North Dakota

Oscar Perry Abello

April 29, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Bismarck, South Dakota

The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in the country, and their lending program is so effective that the federal government followed suit in the face of the unprecedented coronavirus. North Dakota's program is named The Main Street Lending Program, and it works by allowing local banks to be able to offer more loans to small businesses in their time of need by supplying 95% of the loan. This article explains how it works and lays out, policy by policy, the similarities and differences between North Dakota's approach and the federal government's subsequent approach.

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Working Capital for Economic Justice Comes in Handy During a Crisis

Oscar Perry Abello

April 28, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

A nonprofit called Common Future is acting quickly to support business owners during the coronavirus crisis. Their board allocated a set amount of money specifically to keep on hand as a rapid response fund, and by early April 2020, they distributed $250,000 in emergency funding to seven organizations. The recipients are intentionally from disadvantaged communities, like rural, black, Indigenous, and other hard-hit demographics. Each organization used the money in different ways to support their target communities. Common Future also set aside 6 months' worth of operating expenses as a buffer.

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Mass. Groups Inviting People to Think Bigger About Their Stimulus Checks

Oscar Perry Abello

April 21, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Massachusetts

The stimulus checks sent out by the U.S. government in an attempt to alleviate the economic stress caused by the quarantine do not account for those who are undocumented, mixed-status families, and people who don't qualify for unemployment. What started as an idea between a few people grew into a state-wide fund called the Mass Redistribution Fund in which people donate their stimulus checks to those who cannot get one themselves. By April 15th the group had raised $25,000 from 54 donors and even secured a match pledge from the Hyams Foundation. Others are creating similar programs across the country.

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Need a Paycheck Protection Program Loan, or Just a Bank That Cares? Here's How to Find One

Oscar Perry Abello

April 14, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

An online tool called Mighty serves as a “Tripadvisor” for banks, connecting users with publicly-available data on how banks across the United States use their money so that they can make informed decisions when it comes to choosing a bank. During the coronavirus pandemic, Mighty is filling a popular request by connecting small business owners with banks and credit unions that are reliably implementing the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. Mighty has a particular focus on how much social good each bank does, reminding people that every individual choice adds up to societal change.

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Topeka's Two-in-One Platform to Support Local Businesses and Workers Through COVID-19

Oscar Perry Abello

April 07, 2020 |

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Response Location: United States, Topeka, Kansas

In Topeka, Kansas, the local Chamber of Commerce, tourism bureau, and other nonprofits launched the “Helping Others Support Topeka,” or HOST Relief Program, which provides unemployed people $250 in local gift cards, funded by both private and public money. The initiative helps both individuals and businesses struggling after the economic toll of the pandemic.

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