4 min read July 2023 — In an interview with Invest:, Jennifer Rodriguez, president and CEO of Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, talked about the grit that allows the Hispanic community within Philadelphia to surmount various challenges, how the chamber advocates for the Latino business community and the collaboration in place with other businesses and chambers.
What have been some major highlights over the last year?
Over the past year, our chamber has made it a priority to focus on building the capacity and supporting Latino-owned businesses through high quality programs and events. We have placed significant emphasis on entrepreneurship education, launching Build Latino, a hybrid course specifically for contractors that covers the fundamentals and best practices needed for success in the industry. This course, held in Spanish, helps contractors avoid common pitfalls, and it has already trained a second cohort. One of its standout features is that emerging contractors become OSHA10 certified and learn critical skills such as blueprint reading – basics that many contractors have not had the opportunity to learn before.
We are proud to have partnered with our Widener university Small Business Development Center to help startups in the ideation stage. Camino al Exito is a program designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs and startups test their ideas and develop a solid business plan that helps them put their dreams into action, with the added benefit of a micro-grant component for seed funding. Other partnerships, including one with the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Elevate Together, have allowed us to award tens of thousands of dollars in microgrants to deserving businesses. Unlike many national grant programs, our chamber manages the award process, which means that the funding stays locally and that the grants are truly attainable.
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, our cornerstone capacity-building program, Accelerate Business, has successfully supported entrepreneurs of color with high-quality education, expert advice, networks and a rich environment of support and mentoring. Our most recent outcomes report shows that 80% of participants reported being profitable, creating a net gain of 13 jobs while retaining 104 jobs. None of the participants closed their businesses, and 88% maintained or grew their revenue — all positive outcomes that we had hoped for, especially given these challenging times.
What is the state of Hispanic businesses in the community in the Greater Philadelphia region?
There are approximately 22,000 Latino-owned businesses in the region, with approximately 12,000 located in Philadelphia. While Pennsylvania, and specifically Philadelphia, may present challenges for small businesses and entrepreneurs due to the cost and ease of doing business, the majority of Latino entrepreneurs exhibit a positive outlook for the future. Despite the existing barriers to entry, they demonstrate a high level of optimism, grit and determination to succeed. However, Latino-owned businesses tend to remain smaller, even as they mature, due to limited access to capital, social networks and education. This is where organizations such as ours play a crucial role, closing the gap in outcomes by providing support, access to resources, both financial and social capital. Through micro-grant programs and strong relationships with Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and banking institutions, the GPHCC has effectively helped close those gaps for entrepreneurs within its network.
It is worth noting that Philadelphia historically presents structural challenges, particularly for the Latino community, with a 40% poverty rate that has remained unchanged for the past 40 years. Given these challenges, it is impressive that Latino entrepreneurs are producing exceptional results despite lower levels of investment and wealth.
What are some of the current policy and research efforts that the chamber has in place to advocate for Latino entrepreneurs and advisor needs?
Our organization has successfully developed a robust public policy arm that is dedicated to supporting Latino entrepreneurs. Education is the cornerstone of our strategy for helping entrepreneurs succeed and we recognize the importance of raising awareness among elected officials and the general public about the challenges, opportunities and aspirations of Latino business owners. To accomplish this, we have collaborated with other diverse Chambers of Commerce in Philadelphia, including the African-American, Asian-American and LGBTQ chambers, to create the Diverse Chambers Coalition of Philadelphia. Our collective efforts allow us to become stronger allies and better support small businesses owned by people of color.
As a coalition, we have testified in front of city council and aligned ourselves with other larger campaigns to reduce wage and business taxes. Our success in this area has been attributed to the coalition and we are proud to have played a role in making this reduction possible. Despite having limited resources and a majority of Latino-owned businesses being solo entrepreneurs and micro-businesses, we are able to coalesce and work together in a powerful way.
In addition to our advocacy work, we also conduct surveys of small business owners. These surveys give us the insights needed to bring recommendations to government and community leaders to make Philadelphia a vibrant and supportive environment for small business growth. Overall, our public policy arm and coalition efforts are a fantastic example of how collaboration and shared goals can lead to significant impact.
Given the economic landscape, how does this affect Latino entrepreneurs and small business owners and what are some strategies that they use to mitigate the effects?
Small businesses, particularly those owned by people of color, are currently facing a multitude of challenges such as inflationary pressures, a high-interest rate environment and an increase in gun violence. These factors have led to higher costs, labor shortages,which places pressure on profitability. However, many businesses have adapted their business models and incorporated technology, diversified products and services and become savvy social media promoters, in order to mitigate these challenges. While statistics suggest that up to 40% of Black and brown businesses have been lost to the pandemic, my experience in Philadelphia is that family-owned businesses have managed to hold on and continue thriving through grit and creativity. For instance, we have seen some businesses in the restaurant and food industry double in size by taking on the challenge and confronting adversity head-on. This resilience can often be attributed to the immigrant spirit, which provides a unique kind of resilience and optimism that is hard to find elsewhere.
What is your outlook for the chamber and its members for the next two to three years and what are your top priorities for the next five years?
We have built a strong foundation of programs for entrepreneurs, and one of the key steps we took towards achieving this goal was drastically lowering the membership rate, thereby lowering barriers to entry for small business owners. We firmly believe that there should be no barriers for entrepreneurs to access our programs.
In the next five years, we aim to deploy our events, conferences, and education programs throughout the whole region, thereby providing more opportunities for Hispanic entrepreneurs to succeed.
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