 Welcome everyone. My name is Cristina Mora. I'm Associate Professor of Sociology, Chicano Latino Studies and the co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies here at UC Berkeley. It is my honor to welcome you today for an exciting lineup of conversations, independent cutting-edge research, and panel discussions about some of the most pressing issues of today. Now we're about 18 months now into the new normal, right? 18 months of new practices, unchartered territories, and really living through the unknown with new routines and new ways of understanding one another. And when I think back to where we were 18 months ago here on campus, and when I think about it in terms of a social scientist, I often think of the way that the onslaught of the pandemic was quite frightening for all of us, for all kinds of health reasons, but from a social science perspective and especially a Berkeley social science perspective, the pandemic was frightening because we already knew that in California there were deep systemic forms of inequality that were fracturing the state. If we look at the way that inequality has increased across the state, it hasn't been random. There are deep gender inequalities and racial inequalities that existed before the pandemic, before we all had to know very clearly what COVID-19 was. And as the pandemic emerged and continued, what we saw was not a uniform effect. What we saw was the ways that this new phenomenon could exacerbate existing inequalities. Here at IGS, we saw this which was most concerned, and we convened with one another some of the minds across public health, political science, sociology to figure out how we could use our tools here in the university to create cutting-edge knowledge and research on what was going on ahead of us. We, in April of 2020, we fielded one of the first polls on COVID-19. It became the largest statewide poll of its time, and indeed we saw that some of the inequalities that we worried about were present in our data. For example, Black, Latinx, and Asian communities were much more likely to say just how very frightened they were. Black and Latino communities were also much more likely to say that the pandemic had affected their ability to meet their basic needs. Black and Latino workers were also much more likely to say that they did not have the proper PPP, that they worked in non-medical essential job, and Latinos especially were much more likely than all other groups to say how much they worried about their family members and transitions. So we saw that in the beginning of the pandemic that the worry and the fear was not equally distributed across the state. We saw some of the same patterns of racial inequality repeated and exacerbated in this new normal. And as the pandemic continued, I don't have to repeat all of the statistics from the CDC or public health departments to let you know that surely the health consequences and health impacts have not been uniform across the state either. One statistic that continues to follow me, especially as we think of the fact that we are currently right now during Hispanic Heritage Month, is the fact that even though Latinos make up 40 percent, four zero of the state's population, they've been 75 percent, 75 percent of COVID deaths among the working age adults bracket. And as we look forward now, now that things seem a bit more stabilized as we have hybrid events, as we come and we lead our classes, go to meetings, meet our friends for coffees and hug one another, we look forward and think what are the policies that we will create for this new California? What can we do? And here at IGS, we once again thought about what are the ways that we can use the tools of the university to speak to the moment. Lots of folks have been worried about what has happened in the market and what has happened, especially to our small businesses in the state, what is often known as sort of the backbone of this economy, the way that diversity has met with opportunity for many of our minority and immigrant communities across the state. In the summer of 2021, IGS fielded a poll asking California small business owners just how they had experienced the pandemic, right? And what we found is that some of these same inequalities continue that we see today. Black, Latino and Asian businesses were much more likely than others to state that the pandemic had affected their revenue streams, Black and Latino businesses were much more likely to state that the pandemic had forced them to shut down and to reduce their numbers of employees. And when we think of the policies that were created to help alleviate some of the difficulties of the pandemic, we found that even in sort of the best intended policies, there were unintended consequences. Black and Latino, and especially Latino small businesses were much more likely to say that even when they applied for PPP, they did not get the full amount that was requested or that they even had trouble starting and finishing the process of asking for this much needed state assistance. So we can go on and keep talking about this and the way that professors and researchers across the university have tried to live up to the moment, rise to this occasion, and see the way that the tools of the University of California can speak to these grave patterns that persist today. But another way that we have thought about this is as a fantastic opportunity, learning opportunity for our students. We have anyone that's my Berkeley colleague and a Berkeley professor knows exactly why we teach here and why we decide to stay. Berkeley is one of those magical places that is an elite global institution with rankings that are often unparalleled, and yet we also have a deep commitment to a public mission. That isn't perfect, but that continues to strive. We teach without question the best undergraduates in the nation. Our classes have students who are transfer, who are immigrant, who are first generation, who are the sons of farm workers and the daughters of professors. And this creates an unparallel intellectual environment that is second to none. And we believe that our Berkeley students should be in every decision making table across the state and across the nation. And so we saw this as an opportunity to get our own IGS interns, our own IGS student researchers thinking about some of the most pressing problems of today. So in spring of 2021, IGS and the Matsui Center launched a diversity and entrepreneurship initiative with generous funding from the small business growth sector of the Wells Fargo Foundation. The goal of the initiative was to provide UC Berkeley students with resharp and internship experiences focused on how small businesses, especially those that are owned by people of color and women owned, are faring across California. Our diversity and entrepreneurship fellows, many of whom are here today, spent the spring and the summer implementing their own original research projects, while also completing an eight week internship in public service. After completing their research, students even translated their findings into op-eds and blog posts for sharing with general audiences. And their research is their research deliverables have been added to the IGS page of e-scholarship and can be found on our website. In addition to featuring this research, today's symposium begins with a keynote panel made up of leading experts who will discuss what is needed to ensure an equitable and inclusive recovery for small business owners and entrepreneurs across the state. Next are graduate and undergraduate researchers from UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation will share a new tool that they are developing to map vulnerability and displacement of minority owned businesses in the Bay Area in the wake of the pandemic. In the afternoon, we'll have two sessions, each with concurrent panels featuring our research presentations by our 15 diversity and entrepreneurship fellows on a wide range of topics, including the disparate impact of the pandemic on POC owned restaurants and small businesses, barriers to access to PPP, strategies that diverse entrepreneurs use to adapt and stay afloat while responding to a steady stream of new health and safety regulations. The list goes on. These presentations not only demonstrate the impact that student researchers can have on bringing an equity lens to the study of small businesses in California, they also demonstrate the power of qualitative research to amplify the voices of vulnerable and resilient business owners, bringing deeper context and local knowledge to understandings of the way that the pandemic and structural inequalities are impacting immigrant communities and communities of color in California and informing the development of effective and equitable policy responses. We're so very proud and so very excited to have you here today. And it is now my pleasure to introduce Jenny Flores, who will help kick off our symposium. Jenny is the head of Small Business Growth Philanthropy for the Wells Fargo Foundation. She is also a Cal grad. She was actually here in this room as an undergrad a few years ago with more than two decades of experience in banking, impact philanthropy, employee engagement and corporate citizenship. Jenny is responsible for combining financial resources with expertise to help underserved and diverse entrepreneurs expand their efforts. She also leads Wells Fargo's 400 million open for business fund to support the immediate and long-term needs of small businesses that were negatively impacted by the effects of COVID. She has served as a head of the corporate social responsibility at Bank of the West, where she led the company strategy for small business engagement and environmental sustainability. Before this, she spent a decade in community development at Citigroup and also held roles in the Congress of California Seniors, Green Lining Institute and the California State Legislature. So please join me in welcoming Jenny Flores. Well, good morning, everyone. I'm Jenny Flores as Professor Mora said, and I'm with Wells Fargo Foundation. And I just want to let you know how proud we are to be in this collaboration with IGS and UC Berkeley. As Professor Mora said, I am a graduate of UC Berkeley. I study political science. I spent many, many, many hours in this building, and I haven't been back in quite a while. So it's just a very proud moment for me to be at a place that gave me so much and prepared me to be able to be a leader both in the state and at a national level. So just know, as Professor Mora said, that the best of the best come through here. And I cannot wait to see what you do as you evolve your professional pursuits. So I want to just let you know that we entered into this collaboration with IGS because we believe that closing the equity gap really needs, we need a lot of data. And in order for me and my team at Wells Fargo to make informed decisions about where we invest and where we close a gap, we need information that's coming from people who are in the communities we want to serve. And so it made complete sense to me to be able to make a sizable investment to IGS so that we could give the resources to students who can go back into their communities and explore these issues very intimately. And so I have just been incredibly honored to be part of this. And I feel at a deeper level engaged. So I had a mentee and it was wonderful for me to see the ideas that were coming through. So let me just give you a sense of what Pedro, who's my mentee, he examined swap meets and the impact that COVID-19 had on the swap meet sector, where many, many people of color, particularly Latinos are very active. And I just was blown away with the information that came through because frankly, if you think about what banks were studying, it was not swap meets. Even though that is a major sector where businesses are flourishing. And so to have that insight is invaluable. And I'm sure as I get to listen to other presentations, there will be so much more insight that we can take back and not only understand, but action against. So I just want to say thank you to Professor Mora and Christine for your incredible leadership and your thoughtfulness. I know that Professor Mora and I always talk about like what we could do, what can we do more? And that is not the end of this conversation. I think there will be additional investments that we can make based on what we learn. So thank you, everyone, students in particular, all of the guests who are here to share their expertise. I cannot wait to hear what you've discovered and what you have learned over the last 18, 19 months. And look forward to being in partnership for many years to come. So thank you. Thank you, Jenny. We are grateful to you for your partnership, your leadership, and also your mentorship of one of our diversity and entrepreneurship fellows. And so it's wonderful to have you here with us today, our first in-person event in over two years, to listen to the presentations and continue the conversation. My name is Christine Trost and I'm the Executive Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies. I'm also one of the conference organizers. As Christina mentioned, the symposium features original research by UC Berkeley undergraduates who spent their summer investigating the challenges and opportunities facing diverse entrepreneurs and small business owners in the Bay Area and across California. To set the stage for these research presentations, which will follow in the afternoon, we have invited a distinguished panel of experts for a context-setting discussion on the challenges faced by POC-owned small businesses and micro-businesses in California, particularly in light of COVID-19 and what more is needed to ensure an equitable and inclusive recovery. It is my pleasure to introduce Esperanza Payana, who is our moderator for the keynote panel. She is Director of Strategic Communications for Community Vision, a community development financial institution that centers communities on the margins of opportunity by supporting their visions and the work of local leaders. Esperanza has more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit strategy and management. At Community Vision, she drives investment that institutes leadership by and honors the labor of people of color. She works to align organizational systems and initiatives that ensure that Community Vision's programming strategies are focused on creating measurable, sustainable social change rooted in equity and justice. Esperanza has worked extensively in food systems, environmental health, and public health advocacy, always with a deep calling to promote racial and economic equity. She holds a master's degree in nonprofit administration from the University of San Francisco. Please join me in welcoming Esperanza Payana. So it's my pleasure to introduce Bianca Blanquist. She is the Senior Policy and Engagement Manager at Small Business Majority. She handles Small Business Majority's policy and legislative efforts throughout California and manages outreach in Northern California. She builds relationships with small business owners and stakeholders throughout the state. Currently, she serves on the Silicon Valley Small Business Task Force at the City of San Jose on the California Asset Building Coalition Steering Committee and on the California Main Street Alliance Advisory Council. She also serves as the liaison to the California State Assembly and State Senate on Small Business Issues. Welcome, Bianca. We are also being joined virtually by two other speakers. Tara Lynn Gray is the Director of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate. She was appointed by Governor Newsom to direct this entity of the state in March, and prior to that she was Chief Executive Officer of the Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce and Chamber Foundation, where she engaged, educated, and empowered small businesses in California's Central Valley. As California Small Business Advocate Gray sits on the Small Business Advisory Council, which provides input on policies and practices that impact small businesses' participation in the state procurement and contracting process and is led by the California Department of General Services. She has been an advisor for Solano and Alameda County Small Business Development Centers and served as a non-profit manager and director of operations, as well as running her own consulting business. Welcome, Tara. Our third speaker today is Sarah Truhaft, Vice President of Research at PolicyLink. Sarah develops the research agenda to support PolicyLink policy priorities. She oversees research across the organization and expands their research partnerships. She oversees their National Equity Atlas partnership with USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute and launched the All in Cities initiative, The Jobs for All campaign and the Bay Area Equity Atlas. She has led numerous partnerships with grassroots advocates, academics, and national organizations to use data to advance policies to achieve racial and economic equity. Sarah has written for publications, including The New York Times, Shelter Force, and Yes Magazine. She holds a master's degree in city planning and international and area studies from the University of California Berkeley and is part of the UCLA Housing Justice in Unequal Cities Network. Welcome, Sarah. We want to start, I think, by recognizing the critical moment that we are all in. Professor Mora also described that for everyone. For many COVID brought to light the existing framework of systemic racism. We have seen this with disproportionate impacts in mortality rates, in access to health services, in job loss and business closures. So to start off the conversation, and maybe we begin with Tara, what are some of the embedded practices that you've seen within government institutions and private institutions of capital that result in BIPOC, small business communities, being on the margins of opportunities and resources? And we'll start with Tara, but I'd really love all of you to take a stab at that question. Sure. Good morning, everyone. And thank you very much for inviting me to participate in this discussion today about some critical issues. I think that we have all seen a fallout due to the pandemic-induced recession and the effect on BIPOC people and BIPOC small business owners has been devastating. I think that when it comes to looking at government institutions and practices as you pose in your question, I think I am still early on in the process, and I don't think I have a full survey of the landscape to make an assessment from an internal position. But I can say that having operated in this space for over 25 years, that I think there are problems that do have to be addressed. Access to capital for BIPOC entrepreneurs continues to be a challenge. I think there are new programs. We've seen Wells Fargo make significant investment. Citi, JP Morgan Chase, we're seeing bankers make significant investments in BIPOC small businesses and BIPOC community individuals as a whole. And that is a trend I would like to continue to see. We have state resources, California Rebuilding Fund, iBank. Of course, we have our small business COVID-19 release fund where we prioritize underserved business groups. So I think that we are seeing movement and seeing change in that area, that if my hope will continue. I would say also that we should be looking at procurement opportunities, procurement financing, closing the gap for BIPOC businesses when it comes to bonding capacity. So I think that there are a lot of areas that need work in order to level the planning field and give appropriate access to underserved business groups. Great, thank you. Sarah, would you like to go next? Yes, thank you for having me and I'm sorry that I am not there with you today. I just wasn't feeling the best, so that's why I'm zooming in. But this is my first hybrid event, so it's great to be here with you. And of course, Berkeley is my alma mater from graduate school. With respect to this question, I think that the systems are inequitable by design, both the government side and the private financing system side. And we saw that with the PPP loans, where we saw that entrepreneurs of color, small businesses were not connected to the mainstream banks, but those were the institutions that the money was going to and the money was going out through. So there's this lack of connection. Not to say that there is no servicing of these businesses by mainstream banks, but there was this lack of connection that we saw when these banks do serve BIPOC entrepreneurs. The practices are really favoring larger businesses, but we know that entrepreneurs of color are predominantly very small businesses are more likely to be sole proprietorships. So I think that this preferencing of bigness is something that is a huge way in which these structural inequities are reproduced. And then with the banks, we saw racist behaviors. So I don't know if you all saw the study that the National Community Reinvestment Corporation did, but they did a mystery shopper study where they send black and white business owners to the same banks. They have pretty much similar financial profiles. In fact, the profiles of the black entrepreneurs were slightly better than those of the white entrepreneurs. So basically the difference is race and they sent them to 17 banks and in 13 of the 17 banks, the black entrepreneurs were treated poorly. They were treated worse than the white entrepreneurs in terms of what sort of products they were offered. So in 43% of all the tests, black entrepreneurs were treated less well. So that just shows you the racism that exists within these institutions. On the government side, there is also this preference for bigness, which was demonstrated by the PPP loans and the money going through the large banks. I think it was a question of getting money out quickly and then it exposed how there are these gaps in servicing smaller companies, smaller entrepreneurs. So the eligibility requirements. So it's just this preferencing for bigness that is exclusionary and it's by design and we really need to correct for that and it requires a lot of intentionality, which I know we'll get into. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm Esperanza Payana and I want to keep us moving along with Bianca. If you would also please address that question. That would be fantastic. Thank you. Sure. Sure. Thank you so much for the question. Thank you for being here. Can everyone hear me okay? Okay, and obviously a huge, huge thank you to the Institute of Governmental Studies for inviting small business majority to participate today and to share a little bit about our research. Huge thank you to Wells Fargo Foundation for your leadership on these issues to PolicyLink for your wealth of resources, data and information throughout COVID-19 and beyond. And of course a huge thanks to Director Gray for her leadership in the state and we're so excited to work closely with her. I'm the Office of the Small Business Advocate in the years to come. A little bit about my organization. We are a non-profit research and advocacy organization. We advocate primarily for small and micro business owners, particularly those in marginalized communities, including rural areas, low-income communities, as well as women business owners and business owners who have disabilities, as well as immigrant business owners and business owners for whom English might not be their first language. Because this is a context framing panel, I did want to remind folks that there are 4.1 small businesses in the state. However, 80 percent of these businesses are micro businesses. Those are the small, small businesses, even the self-employed individuals that you had mentioned earlier. The average size of the small business owner in our network at small business majority is about four employees. Just to give you a little context about where our data is coming from. But to answer your question, and thank you Sarah for outlining these issues already for us, pre-pandemic in terms of the structures that already were in place for small business owners and the struggles that they face to weather the storm of the pandemic, nearly one in four small business owners did not have a bank account with a bank or credit union. The number is higher for business owners of color and business owners of color obtained less financing than their white counterparts. And this is by over 10 percentage points. The study that Sarah showed has been pivotal in our work in supporting the work of community development financial institutions, those great community lenders in our state, some of whom are here today. Also pre-pandemic, more than four in 10 Californians did not obtain a loan or a line of credit from any lending institution. And when seeking out capital, small business owners of color have encountered more setbacks than their white counterparts. The numbers are 32% of business owners of color have been denied a loan compared to only 17% avoid business owners. So these are the structures that were in place well before the COVID-19 pandemic and were exacerbated by the pandemic. As we're talking about what are some of the embedded practices within governmental and private institutions of capital that have resulted in bi-proximal business communities being on the margins of opportunities and resources. You've talked about where things have landed, what pre-pandemic looked like. I did want to drill down more. And I also want to say that today is really much about a conversation, really initiating a dialogue that's meant to continue. This is an ongoing conversation that we are having. And so questions of course are directed to all panelists. So when we're looking at those embedded practices that have led us here, what does it take to change these practices? Is that for me? It's to all panelists. So if we want to start with Tara, we can. But it's whoever wants to address that. I'll go ahead and take a stab at it. I mean, in order to address these issues that we outlined in the last question, it's going to take policymakers and state advocates, thought leaders, service providers throughout our state to be strategic and to look at the big picture of the small business experience. So when we're looking at how can we address some of these structural barriers that exist for small business owners and accessing capital, we need to take into consideration the financial literacy that goes into small business owners who are also consumers and the importance of opening up a separate business banking account for their business. This is especially true in the child care industry. Child care providers are also small business owners. And these issues are part and parcel of essentially a modern day economy. Entrepreneurship and employment issues can't be addressed in a vacuum. Increased investment and the ability for business owners to receive the technical assistance that we're investing in our state. Thank you again to Director Gray for her investments in the technical assistance of California. But we also need to think about exploring affordable capital, accessing fully funded social safety nets like unemployment insurance, health care and retirement. These are the issues and these are the things that the state of California can drill in on to make sure that business owners can compete for a healthy and productive workforce, as well as to provide quality jobs for themselves. Tara or Sarah? Yeah, this is Director Gray. I would definitely chime in here and say that small businesses and their success are touched by so many things. When you consider that 50 percent of all small businesses are operated from home, it makes housing and housing affordability a substantial issue for small business owners. We've already talked about access to capital, but within access to capital, there needs to also be patient capital. Not all capital is the same. I think that we have to start to look at models that are different than the unicorn that everyone wants to be. We have socialized one view of success and I think that we have to start to look at the success of our small businesses differently and we have to set a playing field for them that allows success at varying different levels. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I mentioned this at the end of my last response, but I just think it really requires intentionality and thinking about how do we design a system that reaches and supports these business owners that isn't designed to serve the big businesses, which are predominantly white. We need to prioritize that reaching those business owners at every step of the way to redesign this system. I think about it and we think about it in stages. If you think about how do you transform systems to be anti-racist, well, you need to start with the people who work within them. How do you start there in terms of the employees to root out discrimination? Then how do you design programs and not just root out discrimination, but also to support employees at institutions, whether it's government, whether it's private banks, whether it's nonprofits even. How do you support them to understand what the barriers are and how to be proactive and dismantling barriers so that you can serve everyone? The individuals. Then you need to think about the programs. At the program level, how do you build in ways to reach these groups and they're diverse? Language access is an issue. Access to the internet is an issue. There are many different analyses that you have to do to understand how to equitably reach these communities or these customers' clients. Then how does that add up to an equitable institution? What needs to happen within that institution, connections to the communities you're trying to serve better? Then above that institutional level is what people call equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems. How do you have institutions that are designed to be serving these segments of the population that are underserved as a part of that ecosystem like the CDFIs, as a core part of that ecosystem? How do you ensure that they have capital? I think looking at those layers from the individual to the programmatic level to the institutional level to that ecosystem level is really essential to redesign the system to be in service. Thank you. You're really driving towards where I want to go with this, just digging in a little bit deeper. I want to say in the midst of so much loss and difficulty across our nation during the pandemic, a ray of light has been witnessing local organizers, activists, and entrepreneurs build networks of community care to meet the needs within the community. Can each of you share an example of how you witness this play out? I'll start with Bianca. Sure, absolutely. Small business majority was an enthusiastic supporter and organization that directly serviced small business owners in helping them to access the Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant. This is the big four billion dollar grant program, the largest in the country for small business owners that we were very excited to see its success in many instances, but also some of the challenges that folks were facing, especially in the early days when the COVID-19 Relief Grant was first released. But what I think that this program has really demonstrated and something that we took to heart at small business majority was the ability for all of the organizations that were funded by the program to get the word out about the grant program to small business owners. These smaller organizations have the flexibility to meet the changing needs of the communities. I specifically remember, for instance, there was a technical assistance provider in Southern California that had essentially created a drive-through for business owners who were oftentimes older to scan their documents because finding a free app to scan your documents, even for a millennial like myself, can be annoying to say the least. Recognizing that many of the business owners didn't have access to programs like that, okay, so what do we do about it? And coming up with novel approaches to deal with that, I'd also like to say the California Rebuilding Fund has been an absolutely novel approach to looking at these long-term effects that barriers that access to capital has for small business owners of color and directly addressing the barriers that they face. It's a novel program that leverages state-backed capital as well as private investments to make investments in small business owners in their community. And counties and cities, local governments can plug into that fund and invest their own dollars into small business owners so they can provide low and, in the case of San Francisco for a time, interest-free loans to their small business owners who need long-term affordable capital. Thank you. Sarah? Yeah, an example that I would highlight, which we've lifted up in the Bay Area Equity Atlas, which provides data on a set of equity indicators, including business ownership, and we're about to update it. So just know that that is coming. But an example we've lifted up is Pacific Community Ventures, which is an organization that serves small businesses and micro-businesses in the way the small business majority does as well. But Pacific Community Ventures, they have a program called a Good Jobs Good Business Model. So they're really looking at both the issue of ensuring that the jobs created by small businesses are good jobs that provide benefits and living wages, and then also ensuring that those businesses are growing and are staying afloat. So in the midst of the pandemic, this is an organization that already serves small businesses and businesses owned by people of color. Like 87 percent of their clients are people of color owned businesses and women owned businesses. But they were able to reach this community. They were able to stay, to continue to provide loans, to reach out, to understand what the barriers were. And they were really successful in terms of the businesses that they served had far fewer losses than the businesses in the broader community. 70 percent of their clients received a six-month postponement on their loans because of the services that Pacific Community Ventures provided. So they just were really able, because they knew the businesses already and knew their needs and could connect the services that they needed to the businesses, they had demonstrable, measurable success. Thank you. Yes, I'm familiar with Pacific Community Ventures. They're one of our partners at Community Vision. We are also a CDFI or Community Development Financial Institution. So I did want to tease out. I also, I wanted to share the, Director Greys had to step off of the call. And so, you know, I'm going to move on in the questions. When Bianca, you touched on this, when relief funding first started, when we really kicked off even starting with PPP and then moving to some of the grant programs, we saw a continued gap in reaching BIPOC business owners because of a failure in the connections, the connections that Sarah is speaking of from the institutions to BIPOC communities. Can either, well, both of you, speak to some of the strategies you saw be effective to overcome that. So how have, if we're saying that this connection, this network building is one of the key strategies or an important strategy, in ensuring an equitable recovery, what were effective strategies that you saw, you know, unfold to really address those gaps? So in addition to the strategies that the technical assistance providers and lenders and nonprofit organizations provided themselves, one of the most effective strategies has been for the state to recognize what is working and to deliver funds for those programs. So for example, the micro business COVID-19 relief grant, which is not yet open, was actually, its genesis began as a Los Angeles street vendor program to provide grants to LA street vendors who couldn't otherwise access the small business COVID-19 relief grant program because even the small business CRG was difficult to access for many folks. So the micro business COVID-19 relief grant is a great example of one of those smaller initiatives and the state recognizing what works, what doesn't, and investing in the organizations that are making those changes in their community. Thank you. Yeah, I think that Bianca has a lot more knowledge in this area than I do, but I would just say that in addition to the, I mean, it's really about supporting those institutions that have those connections to allow them to deliver them at scale, I think, and it's at the policy level, changing the rules so that they are able to deliver those services. Like at the very beginning, the CDFIs and the institutions that have the connections to BIPOC entrepreneurs were not really a part of the PPP program. So we needed to change the policies to really empower those institutions. So I think a lot of it is around those institutions know what to do. They need more capital, more support to be able to do more of what they're already doing. Thank you. Yeah. I think that lines up with some of what we saw as well, which was the folks who were really embedded in community. In fact, we ended up creating criteria that we're now integrating into our own social impact rating system so that as we're looking at what kind of social impact are we having, we're calculating now and capturing who really is community centered. And how do you create measures for what it means to be community centered? We're really looking to build and support folks who are able to step in and create that community care to be part of that network because it increases our economic resilience. It increases our resilience across the board as a community so that when we are, whether we are hit by crises are really when we're just in the ongoing, the chronic crises of racial inequity that we are able to effectively address that. So one thing I definitely wanted to focus on this and get your thoughts on it is just, and this may have been said already, but I want to reiterate from many COVID brought to light the existing framework of systemic racism. We've already been looking at disproportionate impacts and mortality rates and access to health in health services and job loss and business closure. So part of admitting that structures and institutions are responsible for the conditions of devastating inequities and displacement of BIPOC owned small business in California is to confront one of the greatest problems of repair. It's expensive. What do we think are some of the greatest opportunities at a state or even federal level that can be leveraged towards a reparative economy? I'll let Sarah take that one. I don't want to take too much time. I'll go after her if that's okay. Sure, no problem. I mean, I think, you know, it is expensive, but it's worth it, you know, and there's there's so many benefits. And I would say it's actually, you know, part of our view on it is it's actually necessary, like given, given who we are as a nation and how we are, you know, we are becoming a majority people of color nation, we already are here in the Bay Area and in California, right? And like, that's going to continue. So the, the costs of inequity, you know, for our communities are just going to grow unless if we do make bold, like transformative investments. So I think it's, it's the right thing to do because equity is a value in our country and supporting the little people, right? Like it is a value, but it's also like our it is a competitive competitiveness strategy too. So, you know, I think about Algernon Austin, who's now he's, he's moved around a little bit. He's, he was at the NAACP, but I think he moved to another institution, but he was at Demos and he looked at like, what would the economic benefits be if you actually closed the gap in entrepreneurship? And there are these phenomenal economic benefits, right? That in this was several years ago, people of color would own a million more businesses with employees, right? If it was equitable because of the inequity and how many entrepreneurs of color have actual employees versus just sole proprietorships, right? And then that would add nine million jobs and 300 billion in workers and come to the U.S. economy, right? So yes, it's going to cost money to redesign the system and we have to accept that, but it's worth it because we are going to get these financial returns and the returns to families and communities. And so, so I think that, you know, it's expensive, but it's worth it. I have one more question before we turn to the audience for their questions, which is as we evolve from a relief centered capitalization market, funders and investors are going to be looking at who in the BIPOC small business community is prepared for recovery investment. Do they have a plan? Do they have the markers of earned and contributed revenue? How can BIPOC business owners best be supported to be ready for recovery opportunities? Sure. I mean, I think, I think that the efforts of the federal and the state and even local governments to address some of the inequity issues that we've already described would be a great start to art to beginning to support some of these new entrepreneurs, established business owners, high propensity employers who perhaps provide 25 jobs at their place of business. I did want to underscore a couple of opportunities that I want to flag for folks on a federal and state level that can be leveraged towards a reparative economy from the last question. For example, there are currently federal proposals to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. That's currently in the reconciliation package. That would be a great investment in our nation's small business owners as small businesses rely on the same on those taxes to provide great jobs for their employees. I also wanted to flag something that Tara had mentioned at the beginning, which was investing in contracting opportunities. At the federal level, government, at the federal level, President Biden has proposed investing in more federal procurement opportunities for minority business owners and for women business owners, which is huge, leveraging the power of the federal government to incentivize a race to the top as opposed to a race to the bottom amongst those business owners who are bidding for those contracts is a great opportunity, setting those standards for competition, basically. At the state level, to touch on something that Tara had brought up earlier when it comes to competition in the marketplace, small business owners, frankly, existential threat with larger businesses and being simply unable to compete with those large, sometimes multinational corporations that they're currently competing with. The state has an opportunity to remain the standard bearer for small business issues in this space. There are a number of bills on the governor's desk that strengthen rules for third-party food delivery platforms, for example, to promote transparency for small restaurant owners when they sign up for the platform or transparency for consumers to know how much the restaurant actually charges for the food versus how much the food delivery platform charges for the food. In addition to prohibiting these companies from keeping restaurant workers tips, as well as tips intended for the delivery drivers, these are just some examples of some unique ways that the government can spur competition for small business owners at a really crucial time. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to go to some of the policy strategies as well. I mean, I think that we have a whole focus on equitable recovery, and it's very cross-cutting, right? And it's at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level, right? Because right now, localities are deciding how to spend those flexible American rescue plan dollars. So it's at every level. We just need to think about how do we ensure that supporting small business owners and entrepreneurs of color is a strategy that's embedded in our broader recovery strategies, and it's always present. So there's so many manifestations of that through grant programs and through procurement. I want to say a bit about that. But because procurement is at every level, and we did a look recently at the federal level, for example. I still can't believe this data point. It should shock more people, but the number of small businesses that have federal contracts, the federal government is enormous, right? It has the most employees and it's so much purchasing power, but the number of small businesses that contract with the federal government now is 40% lower than it was 10 years ago. That's almost 50,000 fewer small businesses that are doing business with the federal government. And there's challenges as Bronza and our colleague are like, it's hard to do business with the federal government. That's true. And they need to work on making it easier, right? But procurement is a really, really critical tool to shape equitable economies, right? Because it is public money. You can attach criteria to it and have set aside programs. And so there is an effort to address that. And right now, so right now being debated with the Build Back Better legislation is a $2.4 billion program that the SBA has introduced into it that would be to partner with HBCUs and other institutions that are serving entrepreneurs of color to really create those pathways. And we know from pilots that they can work, right? There's like proven examples that if you have dedicated programs that are supporting these businesses and growing and being able to deliver on federal contracts and moving up from subcontractors to prime contractors, et cetera, like it works. It requires the investment, but it does work. And so right now that's on the table. And it's probably, it could potentially be cut like we're trying to advocate for it. So we need to get more of those types of supports embedded in our recovery strategies. The infrastructure bill is creating many more opportunities, right? So I think just being really intentional with our recovery strategies. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. I would like to add to that, especially in light of Tara Director Gray's comment that 50% of small businesses are actually operating out of people's homes. I think that when you look at, that's cottage industry. And when you look at the barriers of cottage industry, it's a great entry point into entrepreneurship cottage industry. So good for that. And there are caps on how much you can make. There's a lot of restrictions around what you can do running a business out of your home. And moving from that, you know, a less formal structure of cottage industry into, you know, really running beyond that, extending your services and your work beyond that often requires a lot of technical assistance. It requires that TA, a lot of that technical assistance is both, you know, having strong revenue generating plans. Of course, your business model, capital strategy for your capital is particularly when you are making such a big move into other spaces. But the other part of that is really just navigating. And when Sarah is speaking of these, you know, federal programs and what may be accessible or even on a state level, one of the massive hurdle is often just navigating our systems or even knowing what are all the disparate resources out there you could potentially be receiving. And so, you know, one of the things around that community care and how people really banded together was resourcing business navigators, different kinds of navigators that could help people who have they themselves have the knowledge of the resources out there who help people navigate the resources. And I would say really understanding what does it take to be viable? You know, what is viability in the business world? What does it mean, you know, that you can be qualified for the program? Sometimes it's something like being able to have three years of financials, you know, being able to move if you're very small business and you're informally keeping your books, I really like, you know, shoebox of receipts very common, you know, that you move that into a more formal structure as spreadsheet even just to demonstrate some sort of trend and what your pattern of revenue generation is to really get a clear assessment of where you can go and what is needed to get you there. But I do want to bring that to light just because as we move towards recovery, right, even for any continued relief efforts and as we move towards recovery, it does seem that the folks who are on the ground, either, you know, the nonprofits and the technical business small business technical assistance providers, they also need support to continue to offer something. It's it's the capacity to build capacity is often one of the more underfunded, you know, resources that are out there. And so it seems like, you know, it would be smart to continue to really look to support that. So I wanted to say that for sure. And thank you so much for your your insight on the critical issues. I definitely want to turn now to the audience for their questions. There's a microphone to the side if you don't mind so we can capture your your question clearly. But for anyone who has a question, please feel free to step up. Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. I've learned a lot in the past hour. And I was thinking, especially as Esperanto was talking about sort of the cottage industry and this idea of the business navigators, because, you know, part of it is that you sit here and we know what the problem is. And we know what the problem is. And then we're thinking, what are these sort of new innovative solutions that might be politically viable, right? That's the second part. The idea of the business navigator doesn't sound so sounds very similar in public health to the idea of the promotoras. If you think about the way that hospitals have sort of engaged in the sort of much more community engaged health aspect and where they have people in communities going out building circles of women talking to them about health, talking to them about how to navigate the ACA, how to sign up for insurance, you might even think that this could be, you know, the same type of model that exists for us to make sure that the health of Californians is actually viable, that the business health, right? You can imagine these navigators going out to the swap meets, you can imagine the navigators going out to the nail salons and things of the sort, the cottage industries that exist, which made me then think about something that Sarah talked about, which is the existence of these pipeline programs with sort of pairing with formal institutions like HBCUs or HSI's. I wonder if there has been any momentum around pipeline programs that could capture these much more cottage industry efforts, in part because my sense is they might be amongst the most vulnerable. My sense is also that given the technical assistance, given the information, they might have, we might get the most bang for a buck there, right? One area certainly is just sort of the reproduction of discrimination that makes it such that POCs, you know, regardless of how well educated or how well resource they might be, will still face inequalities. And yet I think in these cottage industries, we might have much more sort of lower resourced immigrant backgrounds, but that those gains might actually make these huge contributions. So if there have been any talk about what to do about these, maybe much more innovative programs with the cottage industry efforts, pipelines, navigators in these areas, and what role do the non-profits or non-state institutions play here? Sure. So a couple things. I think it's important, especially when we're talking about some of the entrepreneurs that operate in these, in cottage industries, in this kind of more informal space. It's very important, I think, for the programs that are being either replicated from a local level to a state level or designed at a state level or whatever. And even for the non-governmental organizations that are working with these entrepreneurs, I think it's really important to think about language in its broadest sense of the term. Language oftentimes serves as a barrier for entrepreneurs, whether it be, and this is the broad sense of the term, inconspicuously precluding worker cooperatives from something like a grant program because of one word, or entrepreneurs from whom English isn't their first language again. These programs were very inaccessible to them. And entrepreneurs without access to quality broadband, we've seen a lot of folks that are operating out of their home but don't have access to quality broadband to access new markets to compete and then to find the resources that they need to grow their business and perhaps move to a brick and mortar someday. As well as undocumented entrepreneurs and the language that surrounds a lot of programs, making sure to ask those organizations that are still developing relief programs to be intentional about the language that they use to make sure that these folks can access that. So I think that that's one important key factor and I'd also like to underscore the importance of women and entrepreneurship in these cottage industries, in these businesses that operate from their home. The first thing that comes to my mind are family child care providers, oftentimes women of an industry that is, does not, it's very difficult for small business owners in this space to make it to provide quality jobs. And so making sure that we recognize the importance of women in achieving economic security that are operating in these cottage industries is being key to that success. Lots of important issues I think that I mean, I think to go to go back to Esperanza, how you started talking about cottage industries, it's just really important to note how it's like the whole creating an equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem. Like there's just like such a diversity and a spectrum of entrepreneurs that need to be served with that, right? Like when you start and when you start thinking about the micro businesses, the cottage industries, like the intersection between the social safety net and labor market discrimination and inequities and starting businesses, right? So like that's, that's a bundle of things, right? Like I think the Kauffman Foundation, I don't know if this is like not still, if this is still term that's used, but they called it survival entrepreneurship, right? Like my neighbor is a great example, right? He could not find employment several months before the pandemic. His roommate moved out. So he had rent due and it was doubling and the landlord doubled the rent because of the rent control expiring. And he ended up starting a small business because of like left clearly faced lack of opportunities he was looking for. So started a small business, like that's the context, right? And which some, some people start small businesses. It's actually wildly successful, whack donuts, vegan donuts, and they are delicious by from him. But anyways, but you know, that's the context of like some people are starting businesses because they don't have other opportunities. And so that I think, you know, Bianca had brought up like the safety net and how important that is in like stabilizing people just to be able to really thrive as entrepreneurs and just, you know, how there's so much risk involved in being an entrepreneur. I would never be an entrepreneur. I want a regular paycheck, you know, so it's just, it's there's a lot embedded there. And yes, I think that it is really critical to think about the supports that connect to those entrepreneurs and they need to be very high touch. And that's what our systems are absolutely not designed for that. We see it in every realm COVID in the pandemic really spotlighted it. Like we look a lot at the rental assistance programs and we have the money. It's not reaching the people in need because we don't have those navigators. We don't have people to help people fill out applications, right? It's just in it's multiplied in the entrepreneurship space, right? It's like so many applications. So I think all really important issues. Thank you. I think you, I know I have to bring things to a close. But I think you highlighted both you highlighted some critical issues to consider, you know, as we, as we enter into the rest of the day and the panels to come for today's symposium around, you know, the disparate impacts and an equitable recovery. I think you highlighted, you know, the context of why are people entering into small business, you know, entrepreneurship to begin with. And it's because they can't get that regular paycheck. It would be nice. So we're doing health insurance. But they're not, they're not actually, there are a lot of barriers, the barriers are happening there. And so for the, and the barriers are not only availability of the job, but there's also once you get the job, how you're treated in that job and the wages that you're making. And it could be for the acculturative stress you're going through for all of the stress and the hard labor, you're really just not earning enough to make it worthwhile. So how can you earn, if not the same more, you know, doing something that you love or is really pulling on one of your talents that you can grow. I think that's a strong driver, particularly when people are starting with cottage industry. So that is something to be aware of. How do we reach, you know, how do we be within a cultural context that's resonant with the people who really do need that support, the greatest support, because they are facing some of the greatest barriers. I also wanted to add to in response to, you know, who's out there, what are they doing to look at, you know, pipeline generation. Pipeline is a little bit hard to touch. Sarah, you know, said this high touch, high touch means a lot, a lot of frequent contact. And as I mentioned before, that is the most effective way. It's also the most expensive because it requires somebody staffing who's going to be able to do that. So be aware of that. But it is the most effective way having cultural resonance with those with that contact is also incredibly important because mind you, for the people who are experiencing systemic barriers in business, they're experiencing them across the board. So there's a lot of trust building that has to happen. So I would point you in the direction of a group like the Alliance for Community Development. They are here in the Bay Area. They are increasing access to capital and support for local and underrepresented entrepreneurs. You know, they have, I think they're doing a really, it's an exemplary job at building that early, those early stage contacts and really building a force of people, you know, and really can't speak to what kind of services or assistance is needed. So I would direct you there. And unfortunately, I'm so sorry, we are coming to a close with today's panel. I want to thank you all for attending this, for everyone who has called, you know, who's on the video call, Sarah Bianca, Director Gray, for taking your time today to join us. This is an ongoing conversation. And I encourage you all to continue to explore and really, you know, let us work together to make this happen because we have a real opportunity now. Thank you. Thank you so much.