On Friday April 24, Boston Ujima Project's Fund Management Team presented a check for $50,000 to CERO Cooperative, the first installment of a $100,000 investment approved by Ujima's Voting Members in December 2019.
Last year, Ujima’s Voting Members approved a $100,000 investment to CERO Co-Op over 8 years at 4% interest. We are pleased to announce that last month the Ujima Fund supplied the first installment of $50,000 to the cooperative. Thank You to Morgan Lewis for their invaluable pro bono work. If you’d like to learn more about CERO and why their work is important to us all, read this recent article from Edible Boston.
Our support of CERO doesn't stop with this check. Ujima has created an ecosystem approach to take advantage of the pooled strengths of our various stakeholders and provide the most comprehensive support possible. CERO is the first business in Ujima's 2020 Business Alliance, and has pledged to uphold 36 community standards, generated by community members. As a member of the Ujima Good Business Alliance, CERO can take advantage of Ujima’s technical assistance network which includes partners like Lawyers for Civil Rights and Commonwealth Kitchen for customized support, Ujima’s anchor institution strategy to secure purchasing contracts with local hospitals, universities and faith institutions, and Ujima’s consumer organizing strategy, where you, Ujima members and other community members, can use your creativity to serve as community wide ambassadors for the businesses we invest it and ensure that our investments pay off, and our businesses, workers, and communities thrive and grow.
As we continue to create the conditions for our new systems, we will continue to be mindful of our present. Ujima has been a part of a number of business support initiatives aimed at supporting minority-owned small businesses in Boston. Review our Worker and Resident Care Fund, the other initiatives we’ve joined, and what you can do to support Ujima’s businesses below.
UJIMA’S SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT STRATEGY
IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19
Ujima's Worker and Resident Care Fund: Ujima Boston Worker and Resident Care Fund will issue one-time payments to Ujima's Voting Members, Workers of Ujima's Founding and current Business Alliance Workers of Businesses We Love, per calendar year.
Business Equity Fund COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund
A coalition of trusted community organizations—including Amplify Latinx, Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, the Boston Foundation's Business Equity Fund, CommonWealth Kitchen, the Foundation for Business Equity’s Business Equity Initiative, and Ujima Boston—have come together to form the Business Equity COVID-19 Emergency Fund (BECEF) to support Black- and Latinx-owned businesses in Massachusetts which are particularly vulnerable to the financial hardships resulting from the coronavirus crisis.
The BECEF aims to raise $10 million in capital to provide no-interest bridge loans and crisis response support teams to Massachusetts-based Black and Latinx businesses with revenues of at least $250,000. The no-interest bridge loans can be used for working capital and other demonstrated needs, such as salaries, inventory, or equipment. The loans will be up to $100,000 for two-to-three-year terms, requiring no payments for one year and will have no prepayment penalties. To accelerate the ability for businesses to receive funding, the application and decision process will be finalized within 30 days of receiving the applications.
The supported businesses will be partnered with strategic advisors and crisis management expert consultants who will help assess the existing and potential impact of the pandemic on their business, develop financial forecasts and scenarios, and create plans to mitigate the impact, including ways to leverage federal, state, and local government resources.
To date, the coalition has awarded close to $800,000 to 25 Black and LatinX businesses, including CERO Co-op.
Massachusetts Equitable PPP Access Initiative's mission is to ensure timely and equitable access to the SBA Paycheck Protect Program (PPP) loans for underbanked businesses and historically disadvantaged demographic groups, including people of color and women. As part of this initiative, several banks including Berkshire Bank, BayCoast Bank, Eastern Bank, Reading Coop Bank, Leader Bank and several CDFIs are committing to making PPP loans directly to businesses that were left out of the first round of PPP. Ujima is participating as a referring organization, and we have committed to identifying Ujima businesses ready to participate in the initiative and direct them to either technical assistance provider for help completing their applications or directly to a participating bank if they are ready to submit their applications.
LISC Small Business Recovery Grant Program for MA
Ujima was a confirmed Business Support Partner in this program with the commitment to help LISC identify high-priority small businesses in need of recovery grant support.
ADVOCACY
Ad Hoc Small Business COVID-19 Response Coalition Letter Re Small Business Relief and Recovery
RESOURCES
ONGOING
- Ujima Business Alliance
- Ujima Business Support Member Team
- Ujima Technical Assistance Network
- Ujima Boston Resident and Worker Care Fund
- Ujima Community Standards Committee
WHAT ROLE CAN COMMUNITY PLAY?
- For CERO: Help CERO find their next worker-owner.
- Join the Ujima Business Support Team.
- Come to our next #CO-DIRECT meeting, where we provide deeper organizational updates and invite your input.
- Donate to the Worker and Resident Care Fund, which provides monetary assistance to Voting Members, employees of the founding and current Business Alliance, and employees of the Businesses We Love.
- Follow our social media! We are working in partnership with many area organizations and community members to advocate for and uplift needs of small businesses.
We’re in the midst of a transformative moment, on both small and large scales. We are finding new ways of thinking, being, feeling, doing, loving, and laughing as we’ve done before. And as we continue to find new ways to create abundance in our lives, we will use this opportunity to rethink how our society is ordered and reclaim the new, necessary systems we know that we deserve. We what we have decided, collectively has happened, is happening. On Ujima Day 2019, we reminded you that “this is happening, this process cannot be undone. An expectation has been set. It is now a permanent part of our shared story. A new normal is here.” —Boston Ujima Project
