PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Latino Business Action Network (LBAN) today announced it has been awarded $250,000 from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation to help more Latinx-owned businesses from across the country scale their business through the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative Education-Scaling Program. LBAN collaborates with Stanford Graduate School of Business to champion the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. Bank of America's quarter-million dollar investment will help educate more Latinx business owners on how to access capital and business growth resources, closing the opportunity gaps identified in the 2018 State of Latino entrepreneurship research by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative.
That study found that while Latinos launch more businesses than any other group, their companies often start small and stay small, making up 12% of all U.S. firms, but only 6% of all employer businesses and only 3% of employer businesses with over $1 million in annual gross revenue. If the current number of Latino-owned businesses grew to match the size of their non-Latino counterparts, it would add 5.3 million new jobs and $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy. As the nation's leading small business lender, Bank of America also conducts a national survey of Latino entrepreneurs, with its 2019 Hispanic Small Business Owner Report finding that Hispanic business owners far outpace their non-Hispanic counterparts in planning for business expansion over the next five years, 79% to 55% respectively.
"Energized, grateful and inspired are words that come to mind with our new game-changing partnership with Bank of America," said Mark Madrid, LBAN CEO. "This investment is a testament to the deep commitment of Bank of America to invest in the remarkable upside of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial segment in the country, Latinx businesses. Irrevocably, this is an American economic imperative."
"Hispanic businesses are an important segment of America's economy and jobs engine," said Raquel González, Bank of America Silicon Valley market president and executive for Hispanic/Latino Strategy and Initiatives. "LBAN has already played a critical role in bridging the opportunity gap for many Hispanic-owned businesses through its education and mentoring program, and its research validates what Bank of America has found with its own sizable client base of Hispanic entrepreneurs: they are establishing business success and are ready to grow, but they just need to get plugged into resources to help them scale. Our quarter million dollar grant can help more of these entrepreneurs experience catalytic expansion."
The Stanford scaling program, offered twice per year, attracts approximately 250 applicants and admits 80 per cohort (160 annually). To qualify, a Latinx entrepreneur must generate over $1 Million in annual gross revenues and/or must have raised over $500,000 in external sources of funds. To date, through eight cohorts, 584 scaled Latinx entrepreneurs have completed the program. They originate from 31 different states and Puerto Rico, employ over 30,000 and generate over $3.02 Billion in combined annual gross revenues. Apply here for the program.
"LBAN is proud to continue to fund the most comprehensive research on U.S. Latinx entrepreneurship in the country," stated Madrid. "The State of Latino Entrepreneurship research provides valuable insights that motivate institutions like Bank of America to contribute towards solutions. The next State of Latino Entrepreneurship research report will be released January 31, 2020 at the Stanford Graduate School of Business."
SOURCE Latino Business Action Network
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