Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women and Grameen America Announce $20 Million Partnership to Advance Access to Capital for Black Women Entrepreneurs
NEW YORK, NY - January 20, 2022 - Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women and Grameen America today announced a new partnership to advance financial access and inclusion for low-income Black women entrepreneurs. Goldman Sachs will provide $20 million in incremental loan capital to accelerate Grameen America’s new racial equity initiative, Elevating Black Women Entrepreneurs, or Elevate, to bring affordable credit and capital to financially underserved Black women across the United States.
Through the new partnership, $20 million in loan capital will be invested over a seven-year period as microloans in Grameen America’s current and future Elevate network branches. Through Grameen America’s unique group-lending model, loan capital is repaid and redeployed to reach Black women entrepreneurs nationwide at scale. Philanthropic funding from Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women will directly support Elevate’s service operations and grassroots outreach within Grameen America’s existing branch network, including in Newark, NJ, New York City, and a new third location to be determined.
Grameen America’s field staff, including Outreach Coordinators and Community Development Managers, are hired directly from the communities they serve to engage with and provide financial services to women entrepreneurs. To ensure the needs of Black women are fully addressed, additional philanthropic support will fund Grameen America’s ongoing test-and-learn pilots to determine areas of program enhancements and delivery.
“We are thrilled to partner with Grameen America and invest in the transformative Elevating Black Women Entrepreneurs program. We know from working intimately with small businesses that access to capital is one of the greatest barriers to entrepreneurship, especially for Black women and the data validates this fact,” said Margaret Anadu, Global Head of Sustainability and Impact for Asset Management at Goldman Sachs. “Grameen America’s track record of providing very small loans to women living in poverty has positively impacted over 100,000 women. This is precisely the type of impact that we want to accelerate through our investment; and these are exactly the types of results that we are striving for through One Million Black Women.”
Learn More About Our Partnership with Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women
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