The new initiatives build on Visa’s commitment to small businesses and Visa Foundation’s $200 million Equitable Access Initiative
Supporting small and micro businesses (SMBs) has been an urgent priority throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with a great need among minority-owned small businesses, which are disproportionately impacted. Building on Visa’s long-term commitment to this community, Visa Foundation announced new initiatives to provide nearly $5 million in capital to minority-led SMBs, amid a second wave of COVID-19. Visa also announced mentorship programs to further support minority-led SMBs. At the same time, the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute (VEEI) released a new white paper, Supporting Social Equity by Boosting Small Businesses. The paper highlights that Black and African American-owned businesses experienced a larger drop in business ownership (41 percent) than other businesses.
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The VEEI white paper details the historical trends and systemic barriers exacerbating the current state of Black-owned SMBs across the U.S. It outlines policy measures to address these barriers, focused on helping businesses survive, investing in equity in education and in targeted opportunities, such as training and scholarship programs.
As part of its commitment to support SMBs and to address the challenges in access to capital of underrepresented groups broadly, including women and racial and ethnic minority communities, Visa Foundation commits the following:
- $3 million to Black Ambition, a newly launched racial equity and entrepreneurship initiative launched by producer and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams in partnership with five Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
- $1.5 million to Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to increase small business resiliency for women entrepreneurs of color directly impacted by COVID-19.
- $300,000 to VC Include, a Women of Color-led organization building economic justice infrastructure for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, people of color, and women-led funds through education and training programs to support their fundraising journey and build relationships with Limited Partners.
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“The capital gap for entrepreneurs of color must be closed if we are to achieve inclusive economic growth for everyone, everywhere,” said Graham Macmillan, president, Visa Foundation. “Visa Foundation is privileged to partner with these organizations that are addressing this funding and opportunity gap by helping them to empower women, Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. These grants represent just the beginning of our commitment to allocate capital, both grants and investments, to gender and racially-diverse investors and entrepreneurs.”
