Written by: Demi Kolke, Director of Community Investments
During any given month, there is something of note – a quirky holiday or strange pastime – to celebrate. However, now more than ever, we are collectively looking for ideas, people, and movements to lift up. August is nationally recognized as Black Business Month, and we celebrated by highlighting our work with small business owners from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
At Neighborhood Allies, our small business work began in earnest during the pandemic with the creation of our Get Online Grow Online (GOGO) program – a small business support program that is still running strong over 5 years later! GOGO supplies small businesses with personalized e-commerce solutions that will help them enter the digital marketplace. We are proud to serve 93% Black-owned businesses through this initiative*.
Every day, we see firsthand the passion, products, expertise, and experiences that our local Black-owned businesses bring to our city and region, and we are dedicated to ensuring all our region’s small businesses can access resources that help them succeed.
Starting in 2022, we also began work internally to increase our investment into diverse businesses and organizations through vendor relationships, in addition to the delivery of grants and programmatic funding. Our RISE HIGH (RISE HIGH: Resilient and Inclusive Solutions for Equity, Healing, Impact, Growth, and Health) and Operations Teams have worked diligently over the past few years to create a system for tracking our payments – including grants, programmatic investments, and administrative costs. Our first goal was to gain a baseline understanding of where our money was being spent and with what type of firm or business. What we discovered was that our total investment in minority-and-women-owned enterprises (MWBEs) for 2022 was 7%. It’s important to note that we were not tracking only state-certified MWBEs, but rather businesses led by individuals who identify as women or as members of historically underrepresented groups.
Once we had a grasp on our investments, we knew we could dramatically increase this number. We could set goals for 2023 as well as ask the important questions: Are these firms that we’ve always worked with? How accessible are our opportunities to contract with Neighborhood Allies? Are we effectively reaching the population that we know we want to invest in?
In 2023, our numbers grew impressively. Our percentage of resources invested in MWBEs rounded out at 55.67%, accounting for $1.37 million and 122 unique MWBE vendors. While our team had worked diligently to increase this number from 2022, we still knew we could do better. For 2024, we set a goal of 65%!
So…. how did we do last year? While we didn’t quite reach our goal, we still increased our percentage from 55.67% in 2023 to 58.64% in 2024. We invested $1.95 million into 195 unique MWBE vendors! That’s an average of $10,000 per business. For individual MWBEs, this can be a substantial impact, representing annual revenue growth for some over 20% (depending on business type / ownership; source).
How do our numbers compare to industry standards?
- This represents a nearly 5x level of spend as compared to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s spending with Small Diverse Businesses of 12.2% (Source)
- This is also over 2x the Pittsburgh URA’s recommendation of 25% spend across minority-and-women-owned businesses (Source)
There are additional benefits to the communities these businesses call home:
- For every $1 spent at a local business, over $0.50 stays in the local economy, which is much higher than when spending is at chains. (Source: American Independent Business Alliance)
- An increase in revenue for a typical MWBE often leads to new job opportunities, wage growth, or expanded employee benefits—especially in communities where these businesses are concentrated. (Source: NMSDC)
- A revenue jump often increases a business’s eligibility for capital, lines of credit, and property acquisition. This opens the door to longer-term stability and asset building, which directly benefits families and communities. (Source: Bank of America)
- Local MWBEs are more likely to reinvest in community causes — schools, nonprofits, and local initiatives. (Source: Kresge)
Neighborhood Allies is proud to support small businesses, now more than ever. As our investments into MWBEs grow both in number and quantity, we can be certain that we are strengthening the local economy that supports our communities, expanding inclusive access to opportunity, and fostering community-led empowerment and innovation.
*Our programs are open to all eligible applicants regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, or background. We are firmly committed to ensuring fair and equitable access for everyone while focusing our efforts on meeting the most pressing needs in the communities our mission serves and directly supporting the businesses that help our communities thrive.
