NEW YORK CITY (March 31, 2018) - SourceFunding.org was highlighted by Forbes in the feature “A New Funding Platform Aims To 'Level The Playing Field' For Small Business.”
— Forbes (@Forbes) September 24, 2018
Excerpt via Forbes:: “Michael Short was only a few years out of college when he learned first hand about the problems small-business owners, especially those serving low-income neighborhoods, have finding capital to help them grow. After graduating from Syracuse University, he was selected to serve in the university's Engagement Scholars program. Funded in part by the Kauffman Foundation, engagement fellows are charged with tackling thorny development problems from new perspectives. Short ended up working in one of Syracuse's bleakest neighborhoods, supporting the growth of small business owners.”
"All of them were long-standing businesses," Short told me when I met him on the campus of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn one day earlier in March, "but they were isolated." Meanwhile, he said, community groups offered businesses "a multitude of loan programs, whether it's to buy abandoned buildings, or to do manufacturing," or for a variety of other specific purposes. But these organizations were isolated, too. "The way they're funded, on grants, makes them competitors, not collaborators — they don't refer to each other," Short continued. If you're a business owner, "you're really on your own. It's impossible to get the full picture."
#Smallbusiness #loan brokers for online lenders are many, but what SourceFunding is doing is much harder, because the banks, credit unions, and nonprofit in its network are not nearly so automated. https://t.co/EZFU2JoJis
— Robb Mandelbaum (@RobbMandelbaum) March 31, 2018
"In 2014, research by Karen Mills, former administrator of the Small Business Administration under President Obama, confirmed what Short found on the ground [as a Syracuse University Community Engagement Scholar, and later as a social entrepreneur, helping underserved small businesses in a community with the highest levels of poverty concentration among African- & Latino- Americans].”
"There's a disconnect," Short said, "between lenders who say they can't find qualified applicants, and the credit-worthy businesses going from lender to lender and can't find a loan." That year he decided to launch SourceFunding.org as a nationwide resource for small businesses. “If you're a business owner, you're really on your own,” Short explained. “It's impossible to get the full picture of [every funding opportunity & what's the best match]."
"In January, Short, who is 31, launched a national platform intended to provide that big picture — especially for underserved businesses, like those owned by women and minorities, who find it disproportionately harder to borrow money. Over the last four years, his company SourceFunding.org has painstakingly collected data on loan programs and application requirements from some 14,000 institutions nationwide, including small community banks, credit unions, local economic aid groups known as community development financial institutions, and other nonprofit lenders."
About SourceFunding.org
SourceFunding.org provides an easy, safe and secure online system for entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations in the U.S. to apply for low-cost financing from high-quality community lenders using the nation’s first universal small business loan application process.
SourceFunding.org was launched as an inclusive, transparent and low-cost alternative to the rapidly growing number of predatory online lenders and predatory online loan brokers. The financial technology platform’s unprecedented Responsible Finance Network includes over 14,000 trusted community banks, non-profit lenders, credit unions and CDFIs in the U.S.
Highlighted for economic impact at the White House and for socially responsible "FinTech Innovation" in the Business & Management Review, the university, foundation and investor-backed SourceFunding.org is leveling the playing field for ALL entrepreneurs in the U.S. so they can easily find and secure the quality business financing to expand and create jobs.
