Chamber group touts $1M small business loan program ahead of regional plan

Ahead of an in-progress comprehensive plan slated for completion later this year, Austin’s Diversity and Ethnic Chamber Alliance (DECA) has secured a commitment from two local banks to loan $1 million to member small businesses.

The loans, which will be issued by Business & Community Lenders and Wells Fargo, are tied in part to the nearly two-year effort to create DECA’s Regional Equity and Economic Development (REED) plan. The four participating chamber groups and other partners announced the initiative last week, with representatives explaining that a combined effort to address common issues such as transportation, housing, child care and workforce development will improve the prospects for each chamber’s small business members.

Tina Cannon, CEO at the Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce, said the collective and individual groups have historically helped raise the region’s profile to attract major companies but more coordination is needed to help existing and emerging small businesses founded by underrepresented entrepreneurs.

“We work ridiculously well together, and we typically band together on big ticket items. … We’ll get behind a ballot initiative or a policy position. And we’ll get behind – or not behind – a company coming to town,” she said. “But for too long, we were always last to the table, last to the discussion. By formalizing under DECA, and then doing the work that’s going to be written into this REED plan, it gives us weight and gives us a voice in how policy moves forward or doesn’t move forward.”

Other areas of interest for DECA include financing and other resources for small businesses, child care access, the fate of the local creative economy and how the Austin area fits into the regional and global economy.

Tam Hawkins, CEO of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, said the REED plan will complement other business-focused plans in the area such as Opportunity Austin and could offer opportunities for small businesses to capitalize on underutilized real estate or capital assets controlled by major local businesses and organizations.

Another benefit of the plan, Hawkins said, will be its reflection of the specific social and cultural nuances of each chamber and its members.

“We do have very unique, different needs and very different, unique constituencies, quite frankly,” she said, noting that 90 percent of Black entrepreneurs are solo practitioners who may lack employees or other support to run a business if a medical or other issue interferes with their business operations.

Cannon said the $1 million DECA Loan Fund and the forthcoming plan has already received attention from major local employers looking to become more involved with DECA and its member organizations, which also includes the Greater Austin Asian Chamber and Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She said other major cities are also watching the progress on the regional plan, which will be evaluated based on its economic impact.

As the REED plan is finalized in the coming months, the group’s leaders plan to pursue discussions with new City Manager T.C. Broadnax regarding the city’s role in helping to fund the four member organizations. In recent years, when the collective was known as the Multi-Ethnic Chamber Alliance, attempts were made to address funding gaps in the city’s separate contracts for each chamber.

With those contracts scheduled to conclude after the coming budget year that ends next September, Cannon said DECA is at a point where it will pursue more of its funding from major local businesses and other players in the local economy.

“We hope that that partnership (with the city) continues, and it may look and take on a different direction,” she said. “Those contracts were more of a, let’s get you started, if you will, and let’s try to hold you up and get you out there. I think now we’re at a point with REED and DECA that we’re looking for not only ‘is the city a partner,’ but the county is also invested in the work that we’re doing. And then we’re looking for our corporate partners really to be the ones that play a bigger role.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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