Congratulations to Working Solutions CEO Sara Razavi on being elected to the board of the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the national association of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)! Sara looks forward to working with OFN staff, members, partners, and the rest of the board to ensure that all of our communities have access to safe and affordable capital.

Working Solutions is honored to have been awarded a grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration through the Program for Investment in Micro-Entrepreneurs (PRIME). Now in its 20th year, the PRIME grant program was created to help low-income entrepreneurs gain access to capital. Thank you to our local and national partners at the SBA, and congratulations to our fellow grantees across the country.

We are excited to announce that Working Solutions is one of four CDFIs joining forces to support a new partnership that combines our small business lending and free consulting with good jobs tools from our partner Pacific Community Ventures.

Working Solutions staff member Ginelle Curincita attended the 2nd Annual Minority Women’s Business Conference in San Jose in early September, hosted by the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce and the Asian/Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship.

Working Solutions was pleased to partner with Bank of the West, the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, and Pacific Community Ventures on an event to raise awareness about lending resources available to small business owners through Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). Our thanks to Bank of the West and Nasdaq for this opportunity to promote our work and the broader CDFI industry!

Working Solutions has been growing our outreach efforts in the South Bay over the past year. Thanks to the support of the Sobrato Family Foundation and Wells Fargo, we have increased our staff presence and participation at community events in Silicon Valley and on the Peninsula. Recently, Working Solutions staff member Ginelle Curincita presented at two Spanish-language forums in San Jose, both hosted by the FDIC.

Working Solutions is proud to have been awarded a grant from Bank of America to support our work to provide affordable capital, customized business consulting, and community connections to start-up and early-stage businesses across the Bay Area. Working Solutions has invested over $22 million in local small businesses to date, and with the support of partners like Bank of America, we plan to more than double that impact over the next 5 years.

Working Solutions is proud to support our advocacy partner, the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC). CRC recently negotiated a groundbreaking Community Reinvestment Act agreement with Mechanics Bank as part of its acquisition of Rabobank, N.A. The agreement goes into effect in January 2020 and represents billions of dollars in community investment by the Bank into communities across California. Read more here about this agreement and our partnership with both CRC and Mechanics Bank.

Working Solutions staff recently joined African-American business owners for a two-day retreat organized by EVOLVE. The collective heard from inspiring presenters, did a great deal of networking, and discussed health and wellbeing—an integral part of the retreat offering. Working Solutions left the retreat with more leads than any other event in the history of the organization! Thank you to the EVOLVE team for this opportunity.

Working Solutions is pleased to announce that we have a new five-year Strategic Plan! We are excited about our plans for the future and look forward to serving many more local entrepreneurs in the coming years. You can read the full Strategic Plan here.

Working Solutions is thrilled to be featured in the May/June issue of the Oakland Business Review (OBR)! Thank you to the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce for this opportunity to highlight our work—providing affordable capital, customized business consulting, and community connections to start-up and early-stage businesses in the East Bay and across the Bay Area. You can read this issue of OBR here.

Thank you to all of the supporters, volunteers, clients, and other members of our small business community who joined us at the 2019 Invest in Dreams Breakfast! Check out the great photos and inspiring videos from the event here.