Lancaster County strategic plan aims to level playing field for BIPOC community

To level the playing field for the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-owned small businesses, a Lancaster County cohort has teamed up with more than four dozen BIPOC owners to develop a strategic plan to improve access to capital and bring cultural understanding to the community. 

The idea was born from a program with the Philadelphia Federal Reserve which invited the community to participate in its second annual Reinventing Our Communities (ROC) program, a 10-month training program for community cohorts. 

The program used a lens of racial justice to focus on equitable business recovery, and to support small business owners disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and those that have been historically and systematically oppressed, said Jaime Arroyo, CEO of ASSETS. 

“We wanted to make sure we were represented across the table,” added Alma Felix, program officer for Community Foundation of Lancaster. 

“We identified the needs of the community last fall,” Arroyo said. “This spring, we had more conversations and got feedback on what gaps we needed to fill. Now, we are preparing for the implementation stage.” 

The cohort is made up of ASSETS, Communication Essentials LLC, Community Action Partnership of Lancaster County, Lancaster City Alliance, Lancaster City Council, Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce, Lancaster County Community Foundation, PhotOle Photography, The Cultured Professional Network, United Way of Lancaster County, Waller Tax & Financial Services, and YWCA Lancaster. 

The goal is to strengthen trust among resource providers and BIPOC-owned small businesses, build equitable access to capital for BIPOC-owned small businesses, and build community for them, according to the strategic plan.  

Arroyo said the community organizations met with business owners to outline the barriers and needs of their community. “They gave us feedback to help us figure out their needs and priorities,” he said. 

In the next three to five years, the cohort plans to hire a community liaison to connect business owners with resources they need to thrive, he said. 

Felix explained that the BIPOC community historically has not trusted resource providers and therefore, has not had access to capital. The lack of trust, she said, often comes from language barriers and the lack of cultural understanding. 

But the plan goes deeper than just financial help. “These communities need to come together and support each other and celebrate their successes,” Felix said. 

Each goal in the plan, Arroyo said, has an action step. The cohort plans to meet with the BIPOC community regularly to ensure the actions are being taken to improve access to capital and improve community relations. 

“We are leveraging existing resources and then filling in the gaps,” Arroyo said. A BIPOC Investment Fund is being established to offer financial assistance not readily available. Arroyo said the cohort is also working with established institutions to open lines of communication, hopefully opening channels for financial availability. 

One way to do that, he said, is to improve diversity, equity and inclusion communication, which may involve lots of organizations. The goal, he said, is to see how financial products can be more equitable. 

“In my opinion, even if institutions are providing capital, it’s not getting to (the BIPOC) community. We need to figure out how to bridge the gap.” 

That gap, said Felix, is often the business owners don’t trust institutions. “We need to build that trust by gaining understanding of the racial and systemic barriers that led to them,” she said. 

“Current products that are available are often based off history and were not equitable,” Arroyo said. “We need to break down how things are done.” 

He said the language barrier is huge, but even if an institution is culturally competent, it doesn’t mean it translates to inclusion. “We need to be culturally humble and try to work with diverse cultures in the community.”  

The two priorities to implementing the plan, he said, are hiring the liaison and creating the BICPOC investment fund.  

The cohort is looking to community for institutions that want to work with them and help balance the economic playing field, he said. 

Both Felix and Arroyo said they hope to see the plan implemented later this year or early next year.