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With the U.S. officially in recession and COVID-19 disproportionately affecting people of color, black and Latinx business owners in Oakland could receive a much-needed financial boost. The Rockefeller Foundation on Tuesday announced it is donating $10 million to improve financial access for minority and women-owned businesses and fight commercial gentrification in 10 cities, including Oakland.
“As the market changes, [people of color] often get pushed out. We wanted to make sure that they not only get to stay, but that they thrive,” said Otis Rolley, senior vice president of Equity and Economic Opportunity, the New York-based foundation’s only branch focused solely on the US.
Oakland-based nonprofits, government programs, and individual businesses will get roughly $1 million dollars to improve access to credit and loans for women and people of color. Rolley said the timing couldn’t be better and that widespread calls for racial justice might help gather more resources. But he said interest in the project was sparked by data, not by the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd.
Black-owned businesses get turned down for loans at a rate more than twice as high as white-owned businesses, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Even with similar credit scores and pedigrees, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that black borrowers were 8 percent less likely to receive loan approval.
“Breaking barriers to capital and credit for our most vulnerable business owners of color is an essential step in preserving our diverse merchant base,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a prepared statement.
The rest of the Rockefellder Foundation’s $10 million funding will go to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, El Paso, Miami-Dade County in Florida, Houston, Texas, Louisville, Newark, N.J., and Norfolk, Va.
The project is part of a larger $65 commitment to help low income workers meet basic needs. Rolley’s hope is that the funds will spark a larger conversation about philanthropic and governmental investment in Black-and-Latinx-owned businesses. But he said that “ultimately, philanthropy is just a drop in the bucket — the Federal government has to step up.”
“This is a time for us to think about Main Street instead of just Wall Street,” he said.
