Pulp Non-Fiction

Offical blog of New Leaf Paper
September 21

Creating Opportunity

Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) was founded in 1999 as a nonprofit community economic development organization. Over the past twelve years PCV has proven that supporting small businesses furthers community development. PCV has worked with over 1,300 entrepreneurs to create and maintain more than 23,000 sustainable jobs with benefits – at an average cost of under $20,000 per new job created– through programs that integrate nationally recognized research and policy work to drive capital and resources to lower-income communities with multi-faceted Business Advising services. Even amidst the challenges of 2010, PCV’s businesses experienced 9% job growth. Approximately 60% of PCV-nurtured businesses are located in low- or moderate-income communities, and two-thirds of the employees at PCV-advised companies are low- to moderate-income. In short, PCV efficiently creates jobs for those who need them most.

PCV’s continuum of service includes Business Advising, its on-the-ground program through which PCV works directly with small business enterprises in lower-income areas to maximize their success and, thus, their impact on the regional job market; InSight, its research and analysis practice to provide knowledge to investors and policymakers to drive capital to lower income communities; its for-profit growth equity fund, invested through Pacific Community Management; and Borrower Focused Advising, its program to help small business avoid loan foreclosure. As detailed in the proposal, PCV’s program areas have proven their methodology with measurable impact, and they together make PCV one of the country’s premiere programs for business- and job-based economic revitalization of lower-income areas.