Investing in the community: that’s what the community foundations are all about.

The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro has found a way to do it directly by partnering with Piedmont Business Capital.

A great idea, business plan and money — all are the building blocks to a successful business and Piedmont Business Capital is there to help.

“Our mission is to create a shared economic prosperity through equitable lending and investment and the way we do that is by targeting women and minority borrowers the majority of business owners who are creating jobs in the most distressed communities across the market,” Piedmont Business Capital Executive Director Wilson Lester said.

It’s Wilson Lester’s job to help identify those businesses and make sure they have the support needed to succeed. And that need is greater than ever due to the pandemic.

“COVID-19 was unbiased in how it treated businesses across the board,” Lester said. “There isn’t a single demographic or industry ethnic background in our community that was unscathed by COVID-19. What it did was give us the opportunity to step up and support quite a number of businesses. We closed more than a hundred loans this year.”

But more help was needed, and that’s where the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro comes in, partnering with Piedmont Business Capital to make sure small businesses thrive.

“Through this program, we have a quarter-million dollars that we’ll be deploying throughout Guilford County to businesses that are focused on helping our community in meaningful ways and offering the opportunity all the way up to $25,000 to support their businesses during this time with some pretty decent terms and interest rates to help them survive,” Lester said.

Survive and thrive, it’s a goal we can all get behind.

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