Case Study: The World’s Largest Bank Bets BIG on Black Communities

JPMorgan Chase’s Small Business Forward program has committed to investing $150 million over five years to support women, minority, and veteran-owned small businesses.

With small businesses growing fastest among people of color, particularly women of color, the program focuses on helping these businesses get started and shepherding their subsequent growth. It is through this program that JPMorgan Chase (JPMorgan Chase) partnered with digitalundivided.

The Challenge

The first year of the Small Business Forward initiative demonstrated solid results in terms of how small businesses supported by the program were generating revenue, hiring people, and acquiring patents, at a faster rate than industry average. JPMorgan Chase also noted though that the programs didn’t always include a diverse set of founders. Ted Archer, Head of Small Business Forward, Global Philanthropy, said, “While tremendous gains were being made, those gains did not translate enough to the inclusion of founders of color, women, or the communities that surrounded those companies”. JPMorgan Chase decided then that, as a global company specializing in improving the flow and delivery of capital, there was more that could be done to open doors to underrepresented founders and help ensure inclusive economic growth for more communities with greater access to flexible capital, targeted technical assistance, and access to important networks.

Partnering with Digitalundivided

In 2016, JPMorgan Chase learned about digitalundivided (DID) and its research initiative, ProjectDiane, and were interested in DID’s data-driven approach, connections to investors, and the fact that its programming was designed for women of color by women of color. ProjectDiane in particular highlighted the fact that capital is not flowing to women of color founders, which struck a chord with JPMorgan Chase. “With their data-driven approach DID is uniquely positioned to shed light on the fact that capital is not flowing where it should and also to scale up women of color founders in a way that helps them navigate the maze of particular challenges that exist for them in the startup space”, Archer expressed. “We are proud to be a partner in this important work and raise awareness to drive greater investment in this arena”.