CNote | Small Businesses

Category: Small Businesses

posted on
November 25, 2025

This Season, Shop With the Small Businesses Supported by CNote’s Network of CDFIs

Your investment is already helping small businesses fuel local economies, create jobs, and strengthen their communities. Through community-driven financing, these entrepreneurs gain access to the resources they need to expand, hire, and bring valuable products and services to their neighborhoods. This season, one of the most meaningful ways to deepen that impact is simple: support…

Beyond the Bottom Line: Innovations in Measuring Small Business Lending

By Tamra Thetford, VP of Impact Evaluation Small business lending is crucial in America as it fuels economic growth, job creation, and community development. Small businesses build wealth, particularly for underserved borrowers, by generating income, accumulating assets, and fostering financial stability. Mission-driven lenders play a vital role by providing access to capital and financial services…

Supporting Small Businesses: The Critical Role of Community Banking

Small businesses are the lifeblood of local economies, driving innovation, creating jobs, and building community identity. However, they often face significant challenges—chief among them is access to affordable financing (source: sba.gov). This is where community banks step in, playing a critical role in helping small businesses thrive, fostering local economic growth, and building resilience. Small…

Small Farms: Meet Brooklyn Packers Connecting Farms to the Big Apple

Steph Wiley has been an entrepreneur almost as long as he’s been a New Yorker—and he’s been a New Yorker his entire life. At first, Steph owned a dog-walking business in lower Manhattan for more than 10 years before starting a community organizing business with his partner. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Steph is…

Meet Piedmont Community Services, The Behavioral Health Service Provider Taking Care of Its Community

Greg Preston always wanted to return to his hometown and give back to his community. At first, Greg worked at the local Department of Social Services. Now, 25 years later? Greg is the organization’s executive director.

Investing In Black-owned Small Businesses To Close the Racial Wealth Gap

There is a staggering disparity between the wealth of Black communities and their white counterparts in the United States where wealth is the difference between financial and social mobility and terminal economic insecurity. In 2019, Black households, on average, had 14.5 percent of the wealth of the average white household. This disparity is reflected throughout…

Why CDFIs Often Create Better Lending Outcomes for Small Businesses

Small businesses that need financing often find themselves at a crossroads: apply for a traditional bank loan that’s difficult to get but has lower-interest rates or an online loan that’s quickly approved but can end up being inordinately more expensive in the long run. But some business owners don’t realize that there’s an additional option:…

Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Women-Owned Firms

The Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Kansas City just released a joint report on credit access and financial performance trends for women-owned small businesses across the United States. One Big Takeaway, There’s still a huge gap between genders when it comes to small business ownership: