Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, AFR with our coalition partner, Main Street Alliance, have been advocating for more rational and equitable small business relief in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Before the pandemic, AFR promoted the need for new and innovative means to channel aid to small businesses of color since the big banks have proven to be unable and unwilling.
To promote our findings, AFR is convening a series of panel discussions for Capitol Hill staff, advocates, academics and the media. The first of these panels will feature experts from a wide spectrum of expertise to discuss what will be needed to help small businesses generally, recover from the pandemic. The next panel will focus on the needs of small businesses of color and what changes to policy are necessary for these businesses to thrive given our history of discrimination in their access to capital.
Our latest panel, entitled “Increasing Access to Capital for Black Small Businesses” takes a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities for policy change that can reverse the decades of discrimination and disenfranchisement suffered by black small businesses by big banks and traditional lenders.
Panel 1 – Small Business Needs In a Pandemic
Moderator
Didier Trinh joined Main Street Alliance last fall as government affairs director. He brings two decades of federal policy and advocacy experience in Washington DC, including most recently launching and leading a coalition focused on promoting local participation and empowerment of communities in developing countries that receive U.S. foreign assistance.
Apollo Woods founded OKC Black Eats in 2017 to increase awareness and visibility of Black-owned restaurants and culinary artists in Oklahoma City. The goal of OKC Black Eats has been to stimulate the local economy by circulating local dollars in predominantly African/African American communities. Currently, Apollo serves as the founding chairman of the African American Leaders Foundation and is an active board member with the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma & Leadership Oklahoma City.
Sameeksha (Samee) Desai is the director of special projects and advisory, knowledge creation and research in Entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where she advances special projects and activities related to the Foundation’s entrepreneurship research strategy and thought leadership. She focuses on identifying knowledge gaps that must be closed in order to advance entrepreneurship and advises on actionable and practical research that can inform programmatic strategies. She is an entrepreneurship researcher and her work focuses on the policy environment and challenges for new business owners.
Tom Feltner joined NCRC as Director of Policy in September 2020 with nearly twenty years of policy development, research and communications experience at economic justice organizations. Before joining NCRC, Tom was executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending, where he led the organization’s applied research program, including original research for policy white papers on mortgage lending, small business lending and consumer credit. He also led the organization’s public opinion polling on economic and financial services issues. Before CRL, Tom served as director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America.
Tamara K. Nopper is a sociologist, writer, editor, and data artist whose research focuses on the racial and gender wealth gap, financialization, criminalization, punishment, and the social impact of technology, with a particular emphasis on alternative data and credit scoring. A Fellow at Data for Progress and an Affiliate of The Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies, Nopper’s scholarship and writing have appeared in numerous academic publications as well as in The New Inquiry, Jacobin, Truthout, and Verso Books Blog. She researched and wrote several data stories for Colin Kaepernick’s Abolition for the People series.
Panel 1 Discussion Video
Panel 1 Video (Complete Broadcast)
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Panel 2 – Leveling the Playing Field for Small Businesses of Color
Moderator
Rion Dennis is the Legislative & Advocacy Director for Americans for Financial Reform and leads the Capitol Hill outreach for the organization focusing on financial services legislation and regulation. Over a 20 year career in advocacy for progressive causes, Rion has worked for the Change to Win Labor Federation, the NAACP and ROC United. As Executive Director of Progressive Maryland, the state’s largest progressive advocacy organization, Rion led numerous successful legislative campaigns which have enacted serious reforms within the state of Maryland, including budget and tax reform, re-enfranchisement of felon voting rights, criminal justice reform, marriage equality, worker protections, telecommunication and environmental regulations as well as election and civil rights protections.
Panelists
Renee Johnson is a Senior Advisor to Public Private Strategies where she develops innovative strategies for clients to impact the conversation surrounding small business needs with a focus on access to capital, especially to small business owners of color while advocating and creating partnerships and opportunities to provide educational resources for their businesses to thrive. Renee has over fifteen years of experience where she served in numerous roles focusing on her passion to have more women of color enter politics and policy, entrepreneurship, leadership, and advocate for themselves.
Anneliese Lederer is the Director of Fair Lending and Consumer Protection for NCRC. Anneliese is a graduate of the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and Yeshiva University Stern College for Women. She is a member of the bar in the state of Maryland. She has previously worked and interned for a diverse group of legal practices and legislative interests.
Sterling Bone is a Professor of Marketing and Director of the Huntsman ProSales Program at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. Currently his research is focused on alleviating disparities in the marketplace for financial services among racial and gender diverse consumers. Other topics include consumer resiliency and recovery in post-terrorist marketplace attacks, and customer experience management.
Ashley Harrington is federal advocacy director and senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a non-profit policy and research organization dedicated to eliminating abusive lending practices and advancing financial opportunities for people of color and low-income individuals. Ms. Harrington leads CRL’s federal advocacy efforts, helping to shape fair lending and consumer protection reforms to address the racial wealth gap. Her portfolio includes a range of consumer lending issues, with a focus on student debt reform.
Panel 2 Video (Complete Broadcast)
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Panel 3 – Increasing Access to Capital for Black-Owned Businesses
Moderator
Rion Dennis is the Legislative & Advocacy Director for Americans for Financial Reform and leads the Capitol Hill outreach for the organization focusing on financial services legislation and regulation. Over a 20 year career in advocacy for progressive causes, Rion has worked for the Change to Win Labor Federation, the NAACP and ROC United. As Executive Director of Progressive Maryland, the state’s largest progressive advocacy organization, Rion led numerous successful legislative campaigns which have enacted serious reforms within the state of Maryland, including budget and tax reform, re-enfranchisement of felon voting rights, criminal justice reform, marriage equality, worker protections, telecommunication and environmental regulations as well as election and civil rights protections.
Panelists
Leonardo Williams is a two-time graduate of North Carolina Central University, Leonardo Williams is the Chief Strategy Officer and Founder of the PHASE 3 Group, a strategic focus group that provides helpful accountability strategies effectively on Education, Small Business and Community Development matters. Mr. Williams possesses a broad portfolio for Education Policy, Mental Health and Business Development across North Carolina, the Southeastern Region of the United States and the Southern region of Africa. Mr. Williams and his wife Zweli Williams also own the first Zimbabwean restaurant in the United States, recently voted Best New Restaurant by Indy Week, Zweli’s Kitchen.
Rachel Atkins is an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in the Management and Organizations Department at the Stern School of Business. She received a Ph.D. in Public and Urban Policy from The New School, an MPA from NYU, a Master of Government Administration from The University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S., summa cum laude, from West Chester University. Rachel’s research centers on the entrepreneurial activity of blacks in the US. Using economic theory and econometric methods as a foundation, she explores some of the unique dynamics that black entrepreneurs face as a group in the US economy. Her dissertation, “Black Entrepreneurship and the Business Cycle: Firm Entry and Outcomes During Economic Downturn,” examined how black-white disparities in entrepreneurship changed over the last two business cycles and evaluated the role of labor and housing markets in explaining those changes. During this postdoctoral fellowship Rachel will embark on the next project in her research agenda, which seeks to understand how black firm owners utilize technology and engage in innovative activity.
Rachel’s recent work:
What is the Impact of Opportunity Zones on Employment Outcomes?
The Color of Wealth in the Nation’s Capital
Dafina Williams was recently honored as one of Women in Housing & Finance’s “40 under 40,” OFN Vice President of Public Policy Dafina Williams has been quietly driving transformational change in communities across the country over her past 13 years at OFN. An industry veteran, Dafina is brimming with valuable insights on CDFI challenges, opportunities, and impact. The OFN team recently caught up with Dafina to capture some of her knowledge and perspectives, including her thoughts on OFN’s relocation from Philadelphia to Washington D.C.
Brett Theodos is a senior fellow and director of the Community Economic Development Hub at the Urban Institute. His work focuses on economic and community development, neighborhood change, affordable homeownership, consumer finance, and program evaluation and learning. His research includes evaluations of the Economic Development Administration, New Markets Tax Credit, Small Business Administration loan and investment programs, Opportunity Zones, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods, Community Development Block Grant, and Section 108 programs. He is studying how capital flows (or fails to flow) into communities, including the role of mission finance actors like community development financial institutions. He leads projects researching how entrepreneurs can access capital.
Supporting Latino and Immigrant Entrepreneurs in a Time of Crisis
Making Community Development Capital Work in Small and Midsize Cities