Anna Maria Florio creates harmony in her demonstration kitchen, La Cucina at the Market. An alum from the Inner City Capital Connections (ICCC) Philadelphia 2021 cohort, Florio mixes ingredients and community building to create a thriving business that brings people together. From corporate bonding events to couples’ pasta-making classes and bridesmaids’ parties, Florio helps folks in her kitchen work together. Read More

Jennifer Pinck, Boston ABC, MBA, MCPPO, is a living legend in the construction industry. She was one of the first women to enter the field, working in the building trades in the late 1970s and as a field engineer and construction superintendent on commercial projects and historic renovations in the early to mid-80s. She earned an MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management in 1986, the same year she received an ABC Boston Building License – becoming the first woman in Massachusetts to do so. Read More

Forward Financing offers its customers $1,000 if they complete ICIC’s small business educational programs The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Forward Financing, a Boston-based financial technology (fintech) company, have formed a new partnership to further expand the financial opportunity Forward Financing offers their customers, including tuition-free business education programs. As ... Read More

Asian poverty is often overlooked. The model minority myth describes Asian Americans as uniformly affluent and educated. Yet many Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) groups have high poverty levels. Treating Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as one uniform group fails to recognize the diversity in poverty rates among ethnic groups and ignores the many AAPI groups in which poverty is a major problem. Read More

Small businesses rely on financing to launch, expand in periods of opportunity, and persevere during moments of difficulty. It’s not surprising that access to capital is one of the most frequent issues raised by entrepreneurs across LISC’s national small business support network and ICIC’s programs to support small businesses in ... Read More