E200 Targets Inner-City Small Firms For Growth
Mar 31st, 2008 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: Politics & PolicyThe most conspicuous effort at serving so-called “underserved” markets on the part of the SBA to date has been the Microloan program. But while the Administration has not abandoned its efforts to find a way to reduce Microloan program costs, SBA Administrator Steve Preston is also plugging a pilot program called Emerging 200. The idea is to select 200 inner-city businesses that are “poised to grow” and, possibly even more importantly, to create jobs within their communities, and to provide those firms with intensive training, mentorship and networking opportunities with financiers. Unfortunately, this program is clearly not for growth-oriented microbusinesses, since they grow in ways that not many people in Washington seem prepared to acknowledge or accept. To that extent, one might argue that the truly underserved are those that seek to grow in non-traditional ways — in other words, most of the nation’s microbusinesses.
