Greater Philadelphia, January 11, 2022 – The Greater Philadelphia Financial Services Leadership Coalition (GPFSLC), comprised of public sector and community partners committed to solving the region’s most pressing issues related to supporting Black and Brown businesses, has launched The Philadelphia Growth, Resiliency, Independence, Tenacity Fund (PHL GRIT Fund). This fund will increase overall support for Black and Brown businesses through the region’s network of Community Development Financial Institutions.
For decades banks have been working with Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to provide loans and business counseling to small businesses and all banks involved knew they did not want this to be a one-time infusion of funding, but rather a long term, sustainable effort to provide more investment to deploy more loans to underserved businesses. In the beginning of 2021, approximately 30 financial institutions, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania CDFI Network and Urban Affairs Coalition came together through the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia’s Recharge and Recovery initiative to discuss what additional work could be done to ease the impact of the pandemic on small businesses. This group became the Greater Philadelphia Financial Services Leadership Coalition and launched a four-year campaign to support Black and Brown businesses.
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