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The basics:

• Community lenders provide minority-owned businesses with capital, coaching, advisory services
• Banks, nonprofits are investing in financial literacy, workforce development
• Business leaders say access to capital remains a major challenge for minority-owned firms

Brittany Payton found she couldn’t afford to live in New York City on a flight attendant’s salary. But she didn’t give up — she pivoted. She became a licensed esthetician and launched an eyelash extension business that doubled her income within months. Now, nearly a decade later, that entrepreneurial instinct has led her to something bigger: Aulo, a beauty and wellness social club in Newark that celebrated its ribbon cutting June 1.

Getting there required more than hustle. It required capital, and that’s where the Greater Newark Enterprises Corp. came in. GNEC provided Payton with a roughly $30,000 loan at approximately 5% interest over three years.

“It was very important,” she noted. GNEC also connected her with SBA [Small Business Administration] lending resources and provided ongoing advisory services — webinars, financial coaching, and help understanding her numbers. For a business owner stepping into a larger venture for the first time, that guidance proved just as valuable as the funding itself.

The Aulo, which Payton co-owns with her mother and partner Cookie Payton, offers massages, facials, nails, pedicures, and other wellness services across 2,000 square feet, with a mission to help clients connect, collaborate, and focus on self-care.

Her story reflects exactly what GNEC is designed to do: meet minority entrepreneurs where they are, provide the capital they need, and give them the tools to build something lasting.

Mission-first model

For small business owners in underserved communities, accessing capital can feel like running into a wall — one built by credit score thresholds, revenue minimums, and years-in-business requirements that leave out a huge swath of New Jersey’s entrepreneurial community, according to GNEC Executive Director Victor Salama.

“There’s a reason why they’re called underserved,” he said. “Many banks over the past decade or two have gotten more size-oriented, focusing on medium-sized companies. That leaves out a large percentage of business owners, particularly in New Jersey.”

As a Community Development Financial Institution, GNEC operates with a mission-first model that stands in deliberate contrast to traditional banking. “We don’t have a credit score threshold,” Salama explained. “Banks are profit-driven, and that’s fine. We are mission-driven. We also take on startup-stage businesses. If you’re less than two years in business, many banks won’t look at you, but we do.”

And there’s more…

And capital is only part of what GNEC offers. “We also provide wraparound services — accounting, financial advisory services, social media marketing, and now a full-time staff person dedicated specifically to helping clients with sales,” Salama said.

He added that most microbusiness owners are skilled at their craft but struggle with sales. “They don’t take the time to sell.”

Looking ahead, Salama sees some real headwinds. Inflation, tightening immigration policy, and declining consumer confidence are taking a toll — he estimates revenues among some Hispanic-owned businesses in New Brunswick have dropped 12% to 15% over the past 18 months. His solution set includes pushing clients toward diversification, beyond restaurants, barbershops, and nail salons. “We need folks who can come up with a new twist on an old idea,” he said. “Market cannibalization doesn’t serve anyone.”

Starting early

Picture seven teenage girls – most of them Latina, most from low-income families – standing before a panel of judges at Perth Amboy High School, each delivering a seven-minute pitch for a viable business idea. That scene, said Leonardo Ramos, first vice president and CRA officer at Provident Bank, captures exactly what community investment is supposed to look like in action.

Ramos served as a judge at a competition by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship administered through the Jewish Renaissance Foundation at the school, one of New Jersey’s largest, where roughly 94% of students are Hispanic and 70% are low- to moderate-income. He noted that the program is extracurricular — and so popular that hundreds of students apply for just 15 spots. “Those who make it are mentored by a teacher who helps them develop real business plans: defining their product unit, calculating break-even points, projecting startup costs,” Ramos said. He added that winners receive cash awards of $300, $500, and $700 to help launch their ventures, funded in part through Provident Bank’s community investments.

“These girls are way ahead” of many adults who walk into a bank seeking an SBA loan, Ramos said, recalling his earlier career as a small business banker. “Many of those loan applicants – some leaving corporate careers to pursue a business –  arrived without even a basic understanding of how to structure a plan. These high schoolers already have it.”

Provident Bank’s community work is guided by the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which directs the bank to invest in the areas it serves across New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Ramos explained that the bank focuses on four pillars: affordable housing, small business growth and job creation, financial education, and revitalization of underserved communities.

Small business focus

Small businesses are central to that mission. About 70% of businesses in Provident’s service area are small businesses, Ramos detailed. And they employ roughly half of the local workforce. Supporting their growth isn’t just good community policy — it’s good banking.

Working alongside the bank is The Provident Bank Foundation, established in 2003 as a separate, endowed entity with a singular focus on community needs. Executive Director Samantha Plotino said the organization provides grants to nonprofits working to disrupt the cycle of poverty at multiple points — through education, housing, healthcare, food access, and workforce development.

Both Ramos and Plotino emphasized that financial literacy is the thread running through all of it. Ramos, a first-generation immigrant from Ecuador, said his own parents – a lawyer and a teacher – couldn’t prepare him for the U.S. banking system. He learned that on the job, and the experience drives his passion for reaching people earlier.

Plotino agreed. “If there’s one trick, it’s starting younger,” she said. Getting young people financially literate before they need to put it to use – before the credit card debt, before the bad loan – is the most powerful intervention of all.

For small- to medium-sized business owners, the message from Provident is clear: the bank sees your success as inseparable from its own.

Broader commitment

In general, New Jersey’s banking industry has maintained a strong track record on community investment. Brittany Wheeler, vice president and director of government affairs at the New Jersey Bankers Association, noted that member banks have earned “Outstanding” or “Satisfactory” CRA ratings from federal regulators 97% of the time over the past decade — reflecting consistent investment in low- and moderate-income communities through mortgage lending, community development financing, charitable giving, and local economic support.

“Our member banks remain deeply committed to serving under-resourced and historically underserved communities across our state,” Wheeler said, citing responsible lending, financial literacy initiatives, affordable housing investments, and small business support as cornerstones of that work.

Wheeler said that NJBankers also recognizes standout efforts through its Community Service Awards, which highlight initiatives focused on affordable housing, financial literacy, workforce development, food security, and small business support. “Recipients are selected based on measurable community impact and their commitment to advancing economic opportunity and financial inclusion,” she explained.

That commitment was tested – and demonstrated – during the COVID-19 pandemic, when member banks provided mortgage relief, loan forbearance, fee waivers, and flexible repayment solutions, while also administering PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans that helped small businesses keep employees on payroll. “Low- and moderate-income earners were among those hardest hit,” Wheeler noted, “and New Jersey banks worked tirelessly to help those customers navigate the crisis.”

Common problems

On a cold weekend earlier this year, Luis De La Hoz attended four grand openings of minority-owned businesses in New Jersey — all in a single weekend. For many, the harsh weather and uncertain economic climate would have seemed like reasons to wait. But De La Hoz, PNC Bank senior vice president and New Jersey market manager for community development banking, saw something else entirely.

“I was wondering, if the environment is telling them not to open a business, why people were opening businesses,” he said. The answer, De La Hoz said, is necessity, “a pattern that repeats itself after every economic disruption, from the 2008 financial crisis to the pandemic to today. When traditional employment options shrink, minority and immigrant entrepreneurs create their own.”

De La Hoz has a clear-eyed view of what holds minority micro-business owners back. He noted that some 90% of New Jersey businesses have 10 employees or fewer, and they tend to share four root problems: access to capital, access to new markets, access to networks, and the digital divide. Capital is the most critical. “There are two main reasons for this” he explained. “Lack of personal credit history and lack of collateral.”

Rather than lending directly to micro-businesses, PNC’s Community Development Banking group strengthens the CDFIs that serve them — providing both investment and grants so those organizations can deploy capital and technical assistance to entrepreneurs on the ground. PNC also invests in financial empowerment programming, teaching business owners how to build personal credit, manage budgets, and develop sustainable growth skills.

One initiative De La Hoz is particularly proud of is the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers Business School in Newark, of which PNC was an early supporter. He sees entrepreneurship as one of the most powerful tools for economic mobility — noting that Latinos have five times the chance of building savings through business ownership versus wage employment. “Entrepreneurship is the best way for a lot of individuals to overcome poverty,” he said.