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 owner of a Camp Hill business that plans corporate meetings and conferences, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, graduation parties and more won the $8,000 grand prize in the pitch competition held June 9 to culminate the first Capital Region Multicultural Small Business Innovation Lab, sponsored by M&T Bank.  

Lancaster-based Fulton Bank named Joel Barnett to the new position of senior vice president, director of commercial affinity banking, where he will build relationships with businesses owned by people of color, women and veterans.

To call the Rev. Mark Kearse a “people person” is an understatement.

The City of Harrisburg and the Dauphin County Commissioners announced that they will be entering a funding partnership to launch a new disparity study. 

Two weeks into March, Kimeka Campbell, executive vice president of operations for the Young Professionals of Color of Harrisburg, sat down with another leader of the group to come up with what would be next for the four-year-old organization.

Businesses in the midstate asked panelists how they could be more aware of their unconscious biases when looking to hire Black employees and what they could do to address current world events with their employees during a webinar held by the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC.