Community lending organizations selected to offer loans up to $200,000  ---  

Growing small businesses now have a new source of financing backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as twenty community organizations have been funded by SBA to start making loans up to $200,000 to qualifying small businesses.

Authorized under the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, the new Intermediary Lending Pilot Program (ILP) will provide direct loans up to $1 million to 20 community organizations or intermediaries in fiscal year 2011, which in turn will use those funds to help finance small businesses, mostly in under-served markets.

Designed to expand access to capital to small businesses and drive economic growth and job creation, the program will fund 20 additional community lenders in 2012. SBA is still finalizing paperwork for the program and loans will begin to be approved later this year.

Of the first twenty community organizations selected by SBA to participate in the ILP program, Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) in San Francisco is the only Bay Area lending organization. PCV helps small businesses grow and create lasting, quality jobs and economic opportunity where they are needed most. Since its founding in 1998, PCV has directly helped more than 1,000 entrepreneurs to create or retain 15,000 jobs across the Bay Area and California.

“PCV focuses specifically on the kinds of businesses that create jobs for people who don’t have college degrees,” said Beth Sirull, executive director, Pacific Community Ventures. “We welcome business across the Bay Area to work with us through the ILP program,” she adds.

Businesses receiving loans from PCV will participate in their Business Advising Program, which is led by a group of volunteer business executives, industry experts, and professional service providers.

“Businesses will be part of the PCV business advising program so we can help them deploy the funds so that it is sustainable and creates jobs,” says Sirull.

“I look forward to working with Pacific Community Ventures and other new program participants in the region to provide small business owners with the tools they need to grow jobs and accelerate the growth of our economy,” said Elizabeth Echols, SBA Regional Administrator for California.
   
“I’m pleased that entrepreneurs and small businesses in under-served markets now have another source of financial support to make their dreams reality.”

To qualify for an ILP loan, a business has to be in operation for at least two years. Most loans will be in amounts between fifty and two hundred thousand dollars.

For more information about the ILP program and all of the SBA’s programs for small businesses, visit the SBA’s website at www.sba.gov.