IN THE NEWS: SourceFunding.org Selected Forbes Editors' Pick - “Funding Platform Aims To 'Level The Playing Field' For Small Business”

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.”

https://t.co/D46po0UIbC

— 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."

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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. 

SourceFunding.org Builds on Collaboration with Prestigious Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Syracuse University

Photo Credit: Syracuse University

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK (March 6, 2018) - Building on long-standing collaborative efforts and initiatives with Syracuse University, providing over 150 graduate & undergraduate students to date with engaged and experiential scholarship opportunities, SourceFunding.org continues to develop its social enterprise business model with the assistance of the Community Benchmarks Program at SU’s prestigious Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs.

W. Michael Short, SourceFunding.org Founder, and Director of the International Innovators Initiative (IN2NYC) at Medgar Evers College School of Business, City University of New York (VIDEO LINK).

Highlighted in Forbes, at the New York Stock Exchange, at the White House for economic impact, and in the Business & Management Review for socially responsible innovation in financial technology, SourceFunding.org is at the forefront of a new era of hybrid social enterprises: organizations that pursue social missions that are fueled by market-based business models, integrating social and economic objectives.

"The development strategies and plans evolving from our previous work with the Community Benchmark Program in 2015 helped build a strong foundation for the successful national expansion of our hybrid social enterprise business model," said SourceFunding.org CEO W. Michael Short (SU '10 & SU Engagement Scholar '11). "We're grateful for the opportunity to build on that successful collaboration."

As noted by Huffington Post, in an article highlighting the involvement of SU in the early development of SourceFunding.org with social entrepreneur W. Michael Short, the number of social enterprises in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2006.

“The social innovators leading the hybrid movement have advanced efforts to increase accountability of both for-profit and nonprofit social enterprises by combining the best attributes of each,” writes Chris Miller, CEO of the Mission Center L3C Incubator, in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. “It seems safe to assume that the vanguards of the millennial generation and hybrid movement, respectively, will continue to seek more authentic, transparent, and accountable mechanisms for changing the world.”

Specifically, university, foundation, and investor-backed SourceFunding.org expanded nationally in the U.S. to provide a trusted, transparent, & low-cost alternative to the growing number of predatory online small business lenders that are increasingly using deceptive tactics, misleading fees, and hidden costs to take advantage of entrepreneurs nationwide. 

As noted by the U.S. Treasury Department, big banks cut down on their small business lending following the 2008 financial crisis & online FinTech firms stepped in to fill the unmet demand for credit. As a result, the industry boomed and is on track to lend $90 billion a year by 2020. However, according to Opportunity Fund, FinTech loans come at a substantial price with annual percentage interest rates (APRs) reaching from 94% to as high as 358%.

Karen Mills is a Fellow at the Harvard and a leading authority on entrepreneurship & online lending. She was a member of President Obama’s Cabinet, serving as the Administrator of the U.S. SBA from 2009 to 2013 (Photo: U.S. SBA).

Research published by Karen Mills, distinguished senior fellow at Harvard University who lead the U.S. SBA during the Obama Administration, points to a disconnect between traditional banks, that cite a lack of demand from qualified borrowers, and creditworthy business owners, who describe going from bank to bank unable to get a business loan. As a result, businesses are turning to predatory online lending platforms in record numbers.

SourceFunding.org provides the first & only universal small business loan application system accessing every community bank, credit union, non-profit lender, & community development financial institution (CDFI) in the U.S. with the platform's national Responsible Finance Network™ incorporating a network of over 14,000 of the nation's most trusted, transparent, & low-cost lenders.

SourceFunding.org simplifies the capital search process, streamlines the business financing application process, and eliminates over 100 hours of paperwork for entrepreneurs. Using technology to assess the particular circumstances of each entrepreneur, business venture, or organization, along with advanced matchmaking algorithms, SourceFunding.org identifies the small business lending programs that are a good fit out of all the opportunities available.

The platform’s national financial inclusion campaign and social enterprise business model includes multiple independently operated organizations operating toward a shared mission of leveling the playing field for all entrepreneurs in the U.S. in order to stimulate economic impact, community development, and job creation.