At his second annual State of the Borough Address, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer pledged to support Manhattan's small business community with a $100,000 grant to ACCION New York, a leading U.S. microfinance organization and New York City small business lender. The grant will finance a public awareness campaign promoting microloans as an affordable and safe alternative to predatory lenders.
"For too many small businesses, the biggest obstacle to getting credit is a simple lack of information. They don't know that lenders like ACCION New York exist. Instead they turn to loan sharks that are only too happy to prey on them," said Borough President Stringer. "Our public education campaign is going to help change that by bringing thousands of small businesses into the financial mainstream."
ACCION New York's 2007 Impact Study indicates that eighty-two percent of ACCION's borrowers did not have access to bank credit for their businesses. If not for ACCION New York, these borrowers may have been forced out of business or towards loans from predatory lenders with interest rates topping 600% annually-a fate too often suffered by many of Manhattan's nearly 130,000 self-employed (2000 census data).
"For every business to which we provide capital, there are ten more we could have if only they were aware that ACCION New York was an option outside of loan sharks, payday lenders and pawnshops," says Jennifer Spaziano, vice president of business development at ACCION New York. "By increasing the amount of information that is available, we will increase the amount of community-building capital in Manhattan's underserved neighborhoods. ACCION applauds Borough President Stringer for his commitment to providing Manhattan's small businesses with the resources needed to grow."
A launch date will be shortly announced for the bilingual campaign, which will feature advertisements in major Manhattan media outlets as well as grassroots outreach efforts.
About ACCION New York and New Jersey
ACCION New York and New Jersey is a nonprofit microlending organization that contributes to the economic development of the New York metropolitan region by providing loans and advisory services to individuals and small businesses that do not have access to traditional sources of credit. As a leader in both U.S. microfinance and local small business lending, ACCION has provided over $76 million in small loans since its inception in 1991. Ranging from experienced restaurateurs to home-based businesses and native New Yorkers to recent immigrants, loan recipients have transformed capital into citywide economic development, positive community change, and personal empowerment.
In January 2009, ACCION New York combined operations with ACCION USA.