Working Solutions is proud to have been awarded a grant from Bank of America to support our work to provide affordable capital, customized business consulting, and community connections to start-up and early-stage businesses across the Bay Area. Working Solutions has invested over $22 million in local small businesses to date, and with the support of partners like Bank of America, we plan to more than double that impact over the next 5 years.

Working Solutions is proud to support our advocacy partner, the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC). CRC recently negotiated a groundbreaking Community Reinvestment Act agreement with Mechanics Bank as part of its acquisition of Rabobank, N.A. The agreement goes into effect in January 2020 and represents billions of dollars in community investment by the Bank into communities across California. Read more here about this agreement and our partnership with both CRC and Mechanics Bank.

Working Solutions staff recently joined African-American business owners for a two-day retreat organized by EVOLVE. The collective heard from inspiring presenters, did a great deal of networking, and discussed health and wellbeing—an integral part of the retreat offering. Working Solutions left the retreat with more leads than any other event in the history of the organization! Thank you to the EVOLVE team for this opportunity.

Working Solutions is pleased to announce that we have a new five-year Strategic Plan! We are excited about our plans for the future and look forward to serving many more local entrepreneurs in the coming years. You can read the full Strategic Plan here.

Working Solutions is thrilled to be featured in the May/June issue of the Oakland Business Review (OBR)! Thank you to the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce for this opportunity to highlight our work—providing affordable capital, customized business consulting, and community connections to start-up and early-stage businesses in the East Bay and across the Bay Area. You can read this issue of OBR here.

Thank you to all of the supporters, volunteers, clients, and other members of our small business community who joined us at the 2019 Invest in Dreams Breakfast! Check out the great photos and inspiring videos from the event here.

Working Solutions staff had a great time participating in Small Business Week activities across the Bay Area this year, including events in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Thanks to all of the many partners and sponsors who made these events possible. We also want to give particular thanks to the San Francisco Small Business Week team for featuring both Working Solutions and the Entrepreneurs of Color Fund on their blog!

Wells Fargo has been a strong and consistent partner to Working Solutions since the inception of our program. In 2005, it was a $500,000 loan from Wells Fargo that seeded our microlending work, and we have since partnered together on several strategic initiatives, including the Economic Opportunity Grant in the North Bay and the Diverse Community Capital program in the East Bay.

In partnership with Credit Builders Alliance (CBA), Working Solutions and like-minded organizations are supporting Senate Bill 619, which is being introduced by State Senator Ben Hueso. Senate Bill 619 would establish a 3-year, opt-in rent reporting pilot program in declared "Promise Zone" cities throughout the State of California.

With 20 years behind us, we are ready to meet the future head on. Our goal is to continue to focus on the hardest to reach, the smallest, earliest ventures, and to make sure we deploy $30 million in microloans and serve 1,000 local businesses by 2021 … and to keep going.