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As communities across the country struggled to deliver relief to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Miami-Dade’s innovative small business relief fund, named the RISE Miami-Dade Fund (Re-Investing in our Small Business Economy), quickly achieved its goal of supporting the small businesses most in need and distributing funding equitably across the 13 county commission districts, a report published recently finds.
Funded by Miami-Dade County with legislation championed by County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, District 5, RISE delivered $20 million of CARES Act funding to 900 businesses which support 4,500 families by its deadline in December 2020. The Dade County Federal Credit Union (DCFCU) administered the fund in partnership with local community lending institutions and Axis Helps Miami.
The report also provides some of the richest data on Miami-Dade’s small businesses to date — providing a roadmap for how to strengthen the sector that is the backbone of the local economy. The report is available at https://risemiamidade.com/s/RISE-Report-2021.pdf.
“Many of our small businesses exist outside our traditional financial system, without access to the capital and training they need to grow. Thankfully, through data-driven outreach, RISE was able to provide them with the support they needed to stabilize,” Commissioner Higgins said. “Now, we have a historic opportunity to build on this RISE data and learnings, to help small businesses thrive long-term.”
On Sept. 29, small-business lenders, advocates and owners will gather at the online event, Finance Local, to explore the RISE report and other new data on the local ecosystem. The two-part forum will draw on these unique insights to develop new approaches and solutions to how small-business owners can get the capital they need to grow. Organized by Axis Helps Miami, the event is presented by Citi with financial support from the Office of Commissioner Higgins and the Rockefeller Foundation. Speakers include Joe Combs of Microsoft Treasury, Joyce Klein of The Aspen Institute, Sky Kelley of Avisare and Miami entrepreneur Pilar Guzman of Half Moon Empanadas. Registration is open now at FinanceLocal.Miami.
“We now have unprecedented insights into our small-business ecosystem, and a roadmap for building a more robust small-business sector,” said Marta Viciedo, co-founder of Axis Helps Miami, which helps small businesses navigate the support they need to stabilize and grow. “We hope Finance Local serves as a platform for building a data-informed strategy that boosts our small businesses long-term.”
The Dade County Federal Credit Union (DCFCU), which worked with local community development finance institutions (CDFIs) Miami Bayside Foundation, Black Business Investment Fund, and Ascendus to administer RISE, is working to raise funds to continue the program so Miami-Dade small businesses can have both a long-term loan fund and an emergency fund that helps them weather future economic downturns and disruptions.
“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, comprising 80 percent of local enterprises. Their health is vital to our future,” said Michaeljohn Green, fund director for DCFCU. “We hope that RISE can be the fuel for future growth, and an emergency fund to help make our small business sector more resilient.”
The RISE report, which provides much-needed data on the small businesses that power Miami-Dade’s economy, found:
• RISE supported the hardest-to-reach small businesses: 88 percent of recipients had not accessed loans or other technical assistance in the two years before the pandemic. Data-driven, in-person and digital outreach were key to this effort.
• The fund equitably distributed funds across the county: Miami-Dade Commissioners prioritized having the funding distributed equitably across the 13 County Commission districts — a goal achieved through the data-mapping of business clusters and door-to-door outreach.
• RISE provided the genesis of the county’s first small-business data dashboard, inclusive of a gender, race, ethnicity and immigration status: The dashboard created for RISE is an amalgamation of public data, proprietary business data and loan application data from RISE. It can be used as the foundation for a more robust data dashboard for future policy initiatives, to identify challenges, opportunities and progress.
The report also found gaps in the county’s financial ecosystem, and recommends that small businesses countywide be helped by:
• Increasing Technical Assistance: As the RISE Fund grows, it must identify ways to reach small businesses so that they benefit from existing and free technical support and mentoring programs.
• Improving Data Collection for Black-Owned Businesses: 9 percent of RISE loans were issued to local, Black-owned small businesses, which is on par with the national trend of Black business ownership. However, Miami-Dade County is more diverse than the U.S. in general, and better data is needed to ensure the needs of Black-owned businesses are met.
• Creating Business Solutions for Visa Holding Entrepreneurs: 16 percent of RISE funds were issued to businesses whose owners are permanent U.S. residents or green card holders. Additional outreach, approaches and loan products are needed for entrepreneurs who have secured a visa, but have yet to attain legal residence or citizenship.
• Educating Business Owners on Requirements to Operate: Many RISE applicants were not aware of the government requirements to legally operate in Miami-Dade County, such as having a business tax receipt and other necessary paperwork. An educational effort will help small businesses stay in compliance with applicable laws, while also putting them in a better position to have access to loans, grants, and other forms of assistance.
• Expanding Data and Mapping: While RISE prioritized data mapping of businesses, the effort must be expanded to identify solutions that close gaps in Miami-Dade’s small-business ecosystem, to fuel their growth.
