Last month Northeastern University announced it was committing $2.5 million in seed funding for a newly created “Impact Lending” program, offered in conjunction with LISC Boston. The seed money will capitalize a $6.5 million revolving loan fund (RLF), and the RLF will enable LISC to provide $1,000 to $1 million loans to women- and minority-owned small businesses located in or around Northeastern University. Read More

With Small Business Saturday coming up, our CEO, Steve Grossman, explains how and why we celebrate small business all year long. Read More

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its first-ever Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE). Approximately 290,000 employer businesses across all U.S. geographies and demographics participated in the survey during 2014. The results reveal that significant gaps in access to capital still remain. Read More

Last month, Perryman Construction was named to the 2016 Inner City 100 as one of the nation’s 100 fastest-growing inner city businesses. Angelo Perryman observes how sixty years ago, the family construction company was a dream of his father’s. Today, as a leading Mid-Atlantic construction company working on some of the largest projects in the region, Perryman Building & Construction Services, Inc. is an example of the American Dream come true. Read More

It’s no secret that small businesses are the engine of the U.S. economy, typically making up 64 percent of net new private sector jobs in a given year. It turns out, that’s even more true when it comes to the economies of inner cities, according to a new report from the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). Read More