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

In preparation for an ongoing comprehensive plan scheduled for completion later this year, Austin’s Diversity and Ethnic Chamber Alliance (DECA) has secured commitments from two local banks to lend $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 Program. (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 member small businesses.

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

“We work incredibly well together and we usually come together on important issues… We support a ballot initiative or a policy position. And we support, or not, a company that comes to town,” she said. “But for too long, we were always the last one at the table, the last one in the discussion. By formalizing ourselves under DECA and then doing the work that is going to be put into this REED plan, it gives us clout and it gives us a say in how policy moves forward or not.”

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

Tam Hawkins, executive director 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 that it will reflect the specific social and cultural nuances of each chamber and its members.

“We have very unique and different needs and very different and unique groups of people, frankly,” she said, noting that 90 percent of Black entrepreneurs are self-employed professionals 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 upcoming plan have already received attention from major local employers looking to become more involved with DECA and its member organizations, which also include the Austin Asian Chamber and the Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She said other major cities are also watching the progress of 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 continue discussions with new City Manager T.C. Broadnax about the city’s role in helping 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 separate city contracts for each chamber.

With those contracts set to expire after the next budget year, which ends in September, Cannon said DECA is at a point where it will seek to secure more funding from major local businesses and other players in the local economy.

“We hope that that partnership (with the city) continues and goes in a different direction,” he said. “Those contracts were more of a ‘let me help you get started, so to speak, and we’ll try to support you and get you through.’ I think we’re at a point now with REED and DECA where we’re not just looking for the city to be a partner, but for the county to be engaged in the work that we’re doing as well. And then we’re looking for our corporate partners to really be the ones to play a bigger role.”

Photograph available through a Creative Commons license.

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