Hello National Action Network! My name is Isabella Casillas Guzman and I’m proud to serve as the voice for America’s small businesses.
I’d like to begin by thanking Reverend Al Sharpton for inviting me to address your 30th anniversary virtual convention. Your impact over the past three decades has been far-reaching and consequential, and I’m inspired by the vast network of NAN activists across the country who continue to lead the fight for one standard of justice, decency and equal opportunity for all people.
As the leader of the U.S. Small Business Administration, I’m committed to ensuring that the fight for equality is at the center of everything we do to support America’s 30 million small businesses and innovative startups.
Right now, too many of our small businesses are struggling.
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis has had an unprecedented impact on America’s entrepreneurs – from the small mom-and-pop stores on Main Street to the tech startups finding new ways to solve global problems.
Black and brown small business owners have been particularly hard hit. One year ago, as lockdowns were first beginning and millions of businesses were forced to close their doors, the African-American small business community shrank by 41 percent, from 1.1 million businesses to 640,000.
I don’t have to tell you what that devastation looks like. You’ve experienced it for yourselves in your neighborhoods and your communities.
You’ve seen the closed signs, the empty storefronts. You’ve heard the fear in the voices of your friends and family members as they wonder how their businesses will recover. And you’ve watched as the businesses that defined the spirit and vibrancy of your towns and cities have disappeared.
I’ve seen it too. And I stand before you today to say that help is here.
I want every entrepreneur in our nation to know that the SBA is here to provide access to capital, markets and networks for America’s small businesses. And, under my leadership, we’ll be working hard to ensure that access is available to everyone who needs it.
That means meeting small businesses where they are instead of waiting for them to come to us.
That means finding ways to connect with entrepreneurs who lack traditional supports, business structures and relationships, or face language barriers, cultural barriers, transportation barriers, or myriad other challenges.
That means being intentional about building bridges with those who have historically been left behind and have been hardest hit by this pandemic – Black, Brown and women entrepreneurs.
In fact, President Biden has made a commitment to triple the Small Disadvantaged Business contracting goal to 15% by the year 2025. The Federal Government purchases $539 billion in goods and services on an annual basis. The 8(a) Business Development program at the SBA is our flagship program that was born out of the Civil Rights movement. Each year, 24 federal agencies across the Government purchase over $50 billion through the Small Disadvantaged Business and 8(a) programs. We see the National Action Network as an important partner in ensuring that Black-owned businesses are positioned to compete for 8(a) sole-source contract awards, are successful in the federal marketplace, and ultimately are the hubs and spokes for job creation in urban communities across the United States.
In this month alone, we’re rolling out billions of dollars in targeted relief that was included in the American Rescue Plan for the hardest-hit small businesses -- those with five employees or less, minority-owned, restaurants, bars and other food service establishments, concert venues, theaters, music halls and much more.
We’re launching a Community Navigator Pilot program to partner with trusted organizations and community champions who have direct access and connection to the small business owners who were left out of previous rounds of relief and are in dire need of our help.
And we’re leveraging the expertise of our 135 Women’s Business Centers, including newly opened locations at six Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as our Veterans Business Opportunity Centers, our Small Business Development Centers and our entire spectrum of resource partners.
We’re also working to address the fact that Small Business Investment Companies, the more than 300 small, financial institutions currently licensed by the SBA that are investing more than $33 billion dollars in America’s small businesses, have historically fallen short when it comes to lifting up African-American and other minority, women and veteran-owned businesses.
In the coming months, we plan to license more diverse SBIC managers, work with existing SBICs on mentoring and protégé proposals for potential new applicants, look at revitalizing specialized SBICs that focus on underserved demographics, and consider new proposals to provide incentives for investment by SBICs in underserved small businesses.
I’ve also directed my staff to take a long, hard look at every program, every service, every resource in our portfolio and ask this question: Is this opportunity accessible to everyone?
We have a lot of work to do. But it’s never been more important. As Robert F. Smith said last year, when he pledged his own funds to help thousands of Black-owned small businesses across the country stay afloat: “Ensuring the survival of Black businesses is one way to break down at least one of the systemic barriers that exist in the United States.”
At the SBA, we’re committed to eliminating that barrier.
Because while the economic devastation that the pandemic has caused for Black and Brown small businesses is unprecedented in its scope, the root causes -- the disparities in access to capital, markets and networks -- that’s nothing new.
These barriers have been standing for a long time. It’s well past time to tear them down.
I’d like to end today with something that President Biden said on his first day in office, when he signed the executive order that launched an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda. I thought of these words as I took my oath of office a few weeks ago.
“We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives. And it’s time to act now, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because if we do, we’ll all be better off for it.”
Thank you. And please spread the word that the SBA is here to connect all entrepreneurs in America to the support they need to start, grow, and be resilient.