A Second Look for Boston Small Businesses
Meeting with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. Photo credit: Isabel Leon, City Hall Photographer
Last month, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino proposed a new ‘Second Look’ partnership between banks, ACCION USA and the City of Boston. Always a staunch supporter of small business, Mayor Menino wants to deliver to Main Street businesses the financing they need to grow, and believes that microfinance might offer part of the solution. “A sea change in lending is underway, and we can help facilitate it. Microfinance was invented for the underbanked. Now, it’s our small and medium businesses that are underbanked, and we can adapt the model for them,” the Mayor said.
Needless to say, I could not agree more.
Last Thursday I was privileged to attend a meeting with the Mayor to officially kick off his Second Look program. Together with nine of Boston’s major banking institutions, we spoke of ways to get capital into the hands of more small businesses. Through the program, businesses turned down for loans at traditional banks will be automatically referred to ACCION USA for a second look. While we all agreed that not every business is a good candidate for a loan (‘micro’ or otherwise), we also know that sending referrals to ACCION USA helps banks provide a real, tangible benefit to their customers. And it helps get credit flowing to the small businesses that will be the source of Boston’s economic recovery and prosperity.
With banks acting as a feeder system, the Second Look program represents a tremendous opportunity for ACCION USA reach hundreds – perhaps thousands – of small business owners who might never have considered that a microloan might be just what they need.
Think something like this would work in your city?
April 5th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Nice to see that you are always working it Gina.
Talk to you soon.
March 30th, 2011 at 3:19 am
Not sure how I exactly came across this site…but yeah Accion and other companies like you; our company would not be where it is without the micro-loan we acquired.
Shelly Rogers, Medford Property Manager
April 9th, 2011 at 4:41 am
@Shelly
I totally agree with you. Micro-financing is so needed by small companies. Hope more cities and banks wake up to this fact and do something like Boston and Accion.
April 21st, 2011 at 4:30 am
“Microfinance was invented for the underbanked. Now, it’s our small and medium businesses that are underbanked, and we can adapt the model for them”
kudos to the mayor for thinking in this line. If more mayors in cities hit by recession wakes up to this, many families will be saved from eviction and bankruptcy!!!