Finanta Receives $5 Million“ Grow with Google Small Business Fund” Loan to Help Small Businesses Recover from COVID-19
(Lancaster, PA): Finanta announced today it has received a Grow with Google Small Business Fund loan from Opportunity Finance Network (OFN). The community development financial institution (CDFI) will deploy the investment via loans to small businesses, specifically those owned by people of color and women, in central and eastern Pennsylvania hurt by the economic impact of COVID-19.
Finanta provides the financial and human resources necessary to help low-income communities and people, especially people of color, create economic opportunity for themselves, their families, and their communities. Since 1992, the nonprofit’s lending efforts have resulted in the creation or retention of 13,326 jobs with 58% of loans provided to businesses owned by people of color and 40% to women-owned small businesses.
Launched in March, the Grow with Google Small Business Fund delivers financing to CDFIs that are supporting the short-term recovery and long-term financing needs of America’s small businesses hardest hit by COVID-19. At the same time, Google.org made a $5 million grant to OFN to enable OFN’s member CDFIs to improve access to capital for the most marginalized communities. The unrestricted grants can support operations, loan capital, loan loss reserve, capacity building, or any other purpose. On June 17, 2020, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced an additional $45 million in loans for the Fund to assist Black-owned small businesses and $5 million more in Google.org grants. In total, Google has now committed $170 million in loans and $10 million in Google.org grants.
“We are incredibly fortunate to receive this loan from Google, which will allow us to continue providing small businesses in Pennsylvania with much-needed financing to help them survive the pandemic,” said Daniel Betancourt, President and CEO of Finanta. “The partnership between Google and OFN is very exciting and means great things for the future of the CDFI industry.
CDFIs are lenders with a mission to serve small businesses underserved by mainstream finance and a proven model for moving capital into the hardest to serve communities. Finanta is one of the most recent CDFIs to receive a loan from the Fund since June. See a full list of loan recipients here.