ACE (Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs) is joining Wells Fargo’s national Open for Business Fund, receiving a $3.5 million grant from the bank to help a diverse set of small businesses hit hardest by the pandemic, including minority-owned firms.

ACE will maximize the grant – the largest corporate donation in its history – by providing small businesses a 3:1 capital infusion of $10.5 million, using a three-fold strategy to create relief, support recovery and incentivize reinvention. The grant will help maintain or create at least 350 jobs.

Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund was created in July 2020 with roughly $400 million in donated processing fees from participating in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The Open for Business Fund focuses on diverse small businesses by providing access to capital, technical assistance and long-term recovery and resiliency programs.

To date, the Open for Business Fund has deployed more than $84 million in philanthropic capital to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) such as ACE, helping an estimated 16,000 struggling minority-owned small businesses and helped keep in place 50,000 small business jobs.

“We want small business to know they are not alone, and we are going to continue to come together as a community to foster an inclusive recovery and strengthen the small business sector for the long term,” said Candy Moore, Wells Fargo’s Southeast Community Relations leader and ACE board member. “Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund draws on the expertise of nonprofits like ACE to help expand additional capital, emergency relief, and technical assistance to minority-owned businesses, as well as others hard-hit by the pandemic.”

Nearly half of all Americans are employed by small businesses, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. And according to the Wells Fargo Q4 Small Business Index survey, small business owners see a long and arduous road ahead. Nearly 60% of small business owners say they don’t expect businesses like theirs to fully recover from the effects of the pandemic until the second half of 2021 or later. 

“Small businesses are vital to Georgia’s economy, providing jobs, goods and services,” said Grace Fricks, president and CEO of ACE. “Small business owners are leaders and job creators who see their businesses as a way to serve and improve their communities. Due to the pandemic, they are facing unprecedented challenges, and diverse and low-income entrepreneurs are among those hardest-hit. We are committed to ensuring these small business owners have equitable access to the resources they need to meet those challenges, and support from Wells Fargo is key.”

Specifically, ACE will help small businesses with an integrated capital model and a risk mitigating methodology in the form of partially forgivable loans. ACE will also assist small business owners who are expanding pandemic defensive strategies or, pivoting to, or scaling up new models of customer needs, maintaining jobs and generating revenue.

ACE anticipates closing approximately 100 of these specialized loans by combining low-cost, patient loan capital, with the Open for Business funding for partially forgivable loans. It will also help with costs associated with specialized financial business development support, and subsidize the interest rate ensuring that borrowers receive the benefit of the low rate while ACE maintains sustainability and financial health.

If small business owners would like to learn more about possible assistance, they can visit ACE and visit this list to see which CDFIs are part of the program (PDF).