Immigrant lands contract to sell tamales at Warriors’ new basketball arena
Alicia Villanueva started selling tamales door to door, now this Mexican immigrant has hit a major milestone with Opportunity Funded ‘Alicia's Tamales Los Mayas’. She signed a contract to sell tamales at the Golden State Warriors’ new arena in San Francisco. Luis Megid shares her story.
Read StoryCommunity Opportunity
September 2019 — Access to capital and opportunity is a critical challenge for many low- and moderate-income groups in the US, as Deutsche Bank’s Community Development Finance Group explains to Neil Jensen.
Read StoryForget Unicorns: As More Tech Companies Go Public, It’s Time To Celebrate Workhorses
In the world of Silicon Valley venture capital, you’re expected to chase the elusive, the lucrative, the transformative. This could be the killer app or the unicorn startup. Opportunity Fund's CEO, Luz Urrutia, suggests venture capitalists start to think about more than chasing unicorns. Instead of solely focusing attention, and capital, on rarefied billion-dollar companies, the industry should emphasize investing in the familiar, the everyday, the essential — the millions of small businesses that undergird people’s daily lives. These can include neighborhood restaurants, cafés and bakeries; home health agencies; house cleaning services; daycares; and auto detailers. In other words, it’s time to support the workhorses, not just the unicorns.
Read StoryHow Women Can Get The Loans Their Businesses Need
Access to capital is crucial to startups and growing companies. Undercapitalized businesses have lower sales, lower profits, and generate fewer jobs. Women start with less capital than their male counterparts, and raise less debt and equity in their early years which can lead to long-term effects. Lia Hirtz of World Empanadas applied for traditional loans, but banks turned them down. She was referred to Opportunity Fund and received a $15,000 loan. Now her business is thriving: World Empanadas has grown substantially, revenues in 2018 were $1.5 million, and the company now employs 17 people.
Read StoryHow Mastercard Helps Women Entrepreneurs Get The Loans They Need
As nonprofits, CDFIs, like Opportunity Fund, don’t have money to invest in the technology to improve their loan application processes. Many use pen and pencil processes. Enter Mastercard. As an electronic payment company, it has the technology to issue credit in a safer more simple way. Mastercard Impact Fund (Mastercard’s philanthropic arm) helps Opportunity Fund automate our processes.
Read StoryFederal Ban on Confessions of Judgment Would Help Small Businesses
June 2019 — Congress took an important step toward protecting small businesses from predatory lending by re-introducing the Small Business Lending Fairness Act.
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