Huntington Bank Partners With City Hall, Nonprofits to Grow Minority Businesses

Kim Palmer, Crain's

Huntington National Bank and the city of Cleveland announced a joint initiative with 11 other community, financial and civic partners designed to support entrepreneurs and small businesses in underserved areas throughout Cuyahoga, Lorain and Ashtabula counties.

The program, "Entrepreneurs in Residence Powered by Huntington," will be funded by a $500,000 investment by the bank, Sean Richardson, Huntington's regional president, announced Wednesday, Jan. 26.

"We know that access to capital is a key part of helping small businesses grow and thrive," Richardson said at a news conference at City Hall. He said the program "is designed to leverage the expertise of our nonprofit partners to help small businesses expand their skills."

One of the arms of the program will be headed by Mayor Justin Bibb's administration in partnership with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. It will use the funding to focus on minority business development on the southeast side of Cleveland, including neighborhood retail assistance and storefront development for the Lee-Harvard, Mount Pleasant and Union Miles neighborhoods.

Bibb said focusing on the southeast-side neighborhoods with these funds is part of his administration's plan to "put people and neighborhoods first."

"This partnership with Huntington as well with City Council is a good first step on delivering that campaign commitment to truly bring back those (southeast-side) neighborhoods," Bibb said during the news conference.

Neighborhood Progress also will support a program, called "Contractors on the Rise," that is designed to increase the number of Black-owned real estate developers and vendors.

Other partners in the program will leverage Huntington's financial support to address issues around small, minority and women-owned business development and coaching; manufacturing innovation; financial literacy; youth entrepreneurship; startup mentorship; immigration microenterprise; and arts business coaching and capitalization.

Those groups are as follows: Lorain County Community College; MAGNET; Cuyahoga Community College; the Urban League of Greater Cleveland; UBIZ Venture Capital; Global Cleveland; Greater Cleveland Partnership-Economic Growth Foundation; Economic and Community Development Institute; New Entrepreneurs Opportunity Fund; Assembly for the Arts; and the Presidents' Council.

As part of the program, Huntington also will team up with the City Club of Cleveland to provide a speaker series, and it will partner with the Greater Cleveland Partnership/COSE to assist small businesses looking for access to capital.

The program is part of Huntington's 2021 commitment of more than $40 billion to address social, racial, environmental and economic inequalities in areas where the bank does business, which includes 1,100 branches in 12 states.