Collaborating Together to Better Connect Small Business Owners with Critical Services

With a mis­sion to be the sin­gle uni­fied voice advo­cat­ing equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for Pan Asian American/​AAPI busi­ness­es, the US Pan Asian Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce Edu­ca­tion Foun­da­tion and our part­ners through the recent­ly award­ed the U.S. Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion Tier ‑1 Com­mu­ni­ty Nav­i­ga­tion Pilot Pro­gram (CNPP) Grant, will focus on 5 region­al ser­vice mar­kets. It will focus on under­served and unserved Pan Asian Amer­i­can busi­ness­es. Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion with 14 trust­ed, cul­tur­al­ly, and tech­ni­cal­ly knowl­edge­able part­ners, our goal is to con­nect busi­ness own­ers in those com­mu­ni­ties with crit­i­cal ser­vices and assis­tance programs.

USPAACC, with cor­po­rate head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton DC, will be the Hub where lead­er­ship and imple­men­ta­tion of the CNPP, will con­nect with our ded­i­cat­ed nation­al net­work of Spokes in Cal­i­for­nia, Geor­gia, Illi­nois, New Jer­sey and Texas.

With the busi­ness and finan­cial advi­so­ry sup­port and exper­tise in mar­ket entry of our com­mu­ni­ty part­ners to the Pan Asian American/​AAPI busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, this col­lab­o­ra­tion will help these busi­ness­es bounce back after the finan­cial insta­bil­i­ty caused by the pan­dem­ic. USPAACC will com­mu­ni­cate with them in their lan­guage to assist in under­stand­ing, train­ing for and cul­ti­vat­ing the skills need­ed for devel­op­ment and growth; and through tech­nol­o­gy and advise­ment, gain the abil­i­ty to cut through the red tapes, devel­op con­fi­dence, trust and find their voice.

Each of the 14 Spokes was cho­sen for their ongo­ing ser­vice which have pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed their com­mu­ni­ty. Many of them are all vol­un­tary and dri­ven to sup­port their com­mu­ni­ty because they believe in them. The CNPP grant to USPAACC is a major step by the U.S. Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion toward lift­ing up Pan Asian American/​AAPI small busi­ness­es which have been under­served and unserved for far too long.

We want to rec­og­nize each of the ded­i­cat­ed Spoke orga­ni­za­tions and their ongo­ing com­mit­ment to their com­mu­ni­ty. Below is just some of what these orga­ni­za­tions have com­mit­ted to sup­port CNNP, USPAACC and the small busi­ness community.

Major Mar­ket Broad­cast­ing of Cal­i­for­nia (MMBCA) based out of San­ta Clara Cal­i­for­nia with affil­i­ates in all major mar­kets to include San Fran­cis­co, New York, Los Angles, Chica­go, Dal­las and Atlanta will sup­port CNPP with paid and earned media across TV chan­nels to the hard-to-reach Asian Amer­i­can Pacif­ic Islander com­mu­ni­ties who were immense­ly impact­ed by COVID.

NuMe­dia Mar­ket­ing will sup­port the small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties across all the nation­al net­work of Spokes with coun­sel­ing, loan appli­ca­tions, mar­ket­ing, Human Resources advise­ment in mul­ti­ple lan­guages includ­ing, Eng­lish, Can­tonese, Man­darin, Tai­wanese, Fujianese, Japan­ese, Hin­di, Ger­man and Russian.

Uni­ver­sal Pro­cess­ing, through exten­sive out­reach and in mul­ti­ple lan­guages will sup­port the AAPI small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty across the nation­wide Spoke net­work with tech­ni­cal train­ing, nav­i­gat­ing loan application/​forgiveness process­es, shar­ing tips on dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and recov­ery through their social media plat­form, newslet­ter and sales crew network.

Asian Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion of Orange Coun­ty will serve the Pan Asian American/​AAPI com­mu­ni­ties in the Orange Coun­ty area of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. This group will sup­port small busi­ness­es with access to cap­i­tal through webi­na­rs, social media and oth­er resources as well as pro­vide train­ing work­shops, coun­sel­ing and matchmaking.

BeChi­na­town is a San Fran­cis­co Chi­na­town non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that was formed by an all-vol­un­teer coali­tion of com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, res­i­dents, mer­chants, and prop­er­ty own­ers in 2017. This group is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing their com­mu­ni­ty with train­ing, coun­sel­ing, tech­ni­cal and busi­ness ser­vices in Eng­lish, Can­tonese and Mandarin.

Los Angles Small Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Cen­ter (LASBDC) host­ed at the Long Beach Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege Dis­trict will offer exper­tise in all facets of small busi­ness with a focus on access to cap­i­tal and sales/​revenue growth. Since 2007, this orga­ni­za­tion has become the lead­ing source of small busi­ness tech­ni­cal assis­tance in the region sup­port­ing start-ups to mature busi­ness­es in a wide vari­ety of industries.

North­east Com­mu­ni­ty Fed­er­al Cred­it Union is a non-prof­it, mem­ber-owned fed­er­al­ly insured com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment cred­it union serv­ing the Chi­na­town, Ten­der­loin and SOMA neigh­bor­hoods in San Fran­cis­co. NECFCU has com­mit­ted to sup­port CNPP and the small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty with loan and grant appli­ca­tions, loan for­give­ness and coun­sel­ing ser­vices about cred­it and finan­cial lit­er­a­cy in Man­darin and Cantonese.

USPAACC West­ern Region­al Chap­ter will serve the North­ern Cal­i­for­nia small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties in San­ta Clara, San Mateo, Con­tra Cos­ta and San Fran­cis­co and the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia com­mu­ni­ties of Los Ange­les, Orange and River­side. They will be instru­men­tal in help­ing small busi­ness­es by pro­vid­ing indus­try experts, host­ing events, cre­at­ing a direc­to­ry of local experts that will pro­vide in-lan­guage sup­port in per­son and through video training.

The Trust­ed Lawyers, a Desai Law Group, PC will sup­port the Asian Amer­i­can-owned busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties in the metro Geor­gia area with legal coun­sel­ing ser­vices for enti­ty for­ma­tion, fran­chise agree­ments and dis­pute resolutions.

USPAACC South­east Region­al Chap­ter locat­ed in the Metro Atlanta area will focus on pro­vid­ing ser­vices and work­shops to the Asian Amer­i­can busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty by facil­i­tat­ing oper­a­tional, mar­ket­ing, sales, man­age­ment and legal train­ing and coun­sel­ing as well as intro­duc­tions to larg­er tier 1 and 2 sup­pli­ers with­in their network.

Roth & Co will be serv­ing the Chica­go and New Jer­sey Asian Amer­i­can small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties with cul­tur­al­ly and lin­guis­ti­cal­ly com­pe­tent sup­port to pro­vide advi­so­ry ser­vices for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, licens­ing, tax, and exit plan­ning, finan­cial coun­sel­ing assis­tance and access to capital.

USPAACC North­east Region­al Chap­ter locat­ed in New York/​New Jer­sey will sup­port the Hub and the small busi­ness­es in that region with direct out­reach efforts with loan pack­ag­ing assis­tance, dis­as­ter readi­ness and relief assis­tance, pro­cure­ment assis­tance, export assis­tance, start­up and busi­ness plan­ning assis­tance, finan­cial lit­er­a­cy and cred­it counseling.

Kore­an Asso­ci­a­tion of Ft Worth will be sup­port­ing Asian Amer­i­can small busi­ness­es in the Dal­las and Ft Worth area pro­vid­ing in-lan­guage train­ing to build man­age­ment, finan­cial and tech­no­log­i­cal capac­i­ties as well as pro­vide coun­sel­ing ser­vices for loans and grants and dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and recovery.

USPAACC Mid­west Region­al Chap­ter locat­ed in the heart of Chica­go will be sup­port­ing the Asian Amer­i­can and Pacif­ic Islander small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties with­in the city and the sur­round­ing sub­urbs with edu­ca­tion, train­ing and access to resources and net­works. Coun­sel­ing ses­sions will have a focus on finan­cial readi­ness, busi­ness tax­es, cap­i­tal and bank­ing rela­tion­ships, finan­cial account­ing, and minor­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

USPAACC is excit­ed to embark on a jour­ney in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the SBA and our Spoke part­ners to bet­ter con­nect the Pan Asian American/​AAPI com­mu­ni­ty with crit­i­cal ser­vices and assis­tance. The goal of the Com­mu­ni­ty Nav­i­ga­tor Pilot Pro­gram is to even out the play­ing field for Amer­i­can entre­pre­neurs who are at a dis­ad­van­tage. The pro­gram puts an empha­sis on help­ing small busi­ness­es includ­ing women-owned busi­ness­es in the minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty who have not, in the past, received the ser­vices the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment offers. This aligns with the mis­sion and val­ues of USPAACC and all of our Spoke partners.

“These dis­tin­guished grantees will help super­charge our U.S. small busi­ness recov­ery. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, they will help close his­toric and cur­rent resource gaps and advance equi­ty,” Isabel­la Guz­man, Admin­is­tra­tor, U.S. Small Busi­ness Administration.