Report
Launched by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in 2021, the Community Navigator Pilot Program (CNPP) is an innovative approach to serving historically disadvantaged small business owners who were disproportionately impacted by the economic shocks and hardship of the COVID-19 pandemic. CNPP was designed to connect these small business owners to the resources they needed to build back their businesses, create jobs and opportunities, and drive economic growth in across the nation. The SBA’s vision was to create a robust ecosystem of organizations housing community-based navigators to assist diverse small business owners, truly meeting these small business owners where they were and helping them on a path forward. Utilizing a “hub and spoke” model that brought together experienced national and regional organizations and local community partners, CNPP was also designed to build the capacity of community-based partners across the nation to support small business owners with the information, resources, training, coaching, and access to capital they need, right in their own neighborhoods.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been serving immigrant, newcomer, refugee, and mainstream community small business owners in communities since 1999 and was proud to join the SBA as a national partner in implementing CNPP. IRC’s CNPP project spans six states with over 20 local partners. To launch CNPP, IRC onboarded and trained dozens of staff across the nation, creating an ecosystem of knowledge, resources, and community-based access to capital that leveraged IRC’s subsidiary Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), namely the IRC's Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), and dozens of state and local small business relief programs. To date, over 2,300 small business owners have been positively impacted through IRC’s CNPP project. These resilient small business owners have strengthened their skills, invested in their business operations, and been able to access millions in business capital and financing through over 16,500 hours of technical assistance. Community Navigators have helped these businesses apply for over $24,000,000 in relief to keep their businesses open, vibrant and growing, landing more than $10,000,000 in capital so far to sustain these businesses. Importantly, it is not just the small businesses that have benefited from CNPP - these businesses have multiplied this investment many times over, keeping their doors open, creating or retaining 1,174 jobs to date, and have added to local economies throughout the US.
In addition to the brief, eight small business owners who participated in CNPP shared their stories of resilience and success - watch their stories here.
