New Voices Foundation and JPMorgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways initiative are developing and hosting the New Voices Banking Bootcamp – a business banking educational program.
Slated to start later this month, the bootcamp is designed to help women of color entrepreneurs establish strong business banking relationships and expand their access to capital, which is critical to business growth and success. Small businesses that are led by women of color entrepreneurs, for example, are often unable to access both private and public funding opportunities due to weak banking relationships and other factors.
The New Voices Banking Bootcamp seeks to help fill this gap by providing business banking and finance education, as well as a $10,000 award upon completion of the bootcamp.
From Monday, November 30 through December 18, the New Voices Banking Bootcamp will conduct three intensive program sessions to engage 15 participants in workshops to help them:
- Master their business finances and understand banking/capital models and risk analyses.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with banks and other key financial institutions.
- Better position their companies to secure capital to grow and scale in the future.Read More: DRC Enters Gartner Magic Quadrant for P&C Core Platforms
Applications for the bootcamp are open through Nov. 22.
The program design was shaped by a May 2020 survey of nearly 1,200 women of color entrepreneurs conducted by the New Voices Foundation. During the survey, the respondents shared how their businesses were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and details on their banking relationships.
“The [survey] data reinforces what we already knew,” said Richelyna Hall, New Voices Foundation’s Chief Impact Officer. “The importance of capital to small businesses’ ability to grow and thrive cannot be overstated. Access to capital continues to be out of reach for women of color entrepreneurs with investors both less likely to be exposed to these entrepreneurs and less willing to diversify their applicant pools. Moreover, research has shown that most investors have different standards for women of color when evaluating their funding eligibility. New Voices is committed to helping women-of-color-led businesses learn and implement banking and financial best practices, and the New Voices Banking Bootcamp will jump start the process for participants.”
