In April, President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. A provision in the law establishing crowdfunding as a mechanism to spur start-ups has the potential to significantly help minority firms.
A study conducted by the Commerce Department concluded that women- and minority-owned firms “experience higher loan denial probabilities and pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses even after controlling for differences in credit-worthiness, and other factors.” The failure rate of minority businesses is higher than that of nonminority firms, according to the Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency, partly because of lack of capital.
But crowdfundingcan potentially level the playing field, opening new sources of business capital and revenue for women- and minority-owned firms.
What is crowdfunding and how can it work to help your business in the future will be the subject of a webinar on June 21st conducted by William Michael Cunningham of Creative Investment Research. Mr. Cunningham is a social investment advisor, owner of MinorityFinance.com and the author of the forthcoming book “The JOBS Act: Crowdfunding for Small Businesses and Startups.”
When: Thursday June 21, 2012
3:30 to 4:30 PM (ET)
Cost: $75 for SCSBCC members / $100 for non-members