Ascendus awarded $1M Recoverable Grant from The Boston Foundation

Boston, MA, June 29^th, 2023: The Boston Foundation, through its Donor Advised Funds, awarded Ascendus $1 million to support childcare providers and entrepreneurs of color in the Greater Boston area. This recoverable grant provides innovative capital that enables Ascendus to absorb credit risks, fueling lending and expanding access to capital that meets the specific needs of small businesses in the Greater Boston area.

With flexible repayment terms and no borrowing costs, these recoverable grant funds will also help Greater Boston small business owners build their credit and financial health, fueling access to opportunity, resiliency over time, sustainability, and finance regional growth.

“The Recoverable Grant from The Boston Foundation comes at a critical time. Instead of leaning back, the loss absorption feature of this grant allows us to lean forward in lending to and innovating for those adversely impacted by an economic downturn, the home-based childcare providers, and the entrepreneurs of color throughout Greater Boston.” – Paul Quintero, CEO of Ascendus

This recoverable grant will allow Ascendus to help more small business owners like Gloria Sarria, an entrepreneur of color and a childcare provider:

Gloria has served generations of families in her community through her daycare, and her income has solely sustained her family of four and provided the funding to support both her children through college. Gloria used three Ascendus loans to help her with getting through the COVID-19 pandemic, to make renovations, and to buy new toys and furniture for the children in her care. Now, with an improved credit score from perfect repayment history, she can qualify to buy her own home and run a daycare that she owns out of it.

Ascendus will begin deploying this innovative capital in 2023 and anticipates dollars will be fully deployed by the end of 2024.

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About Ascendus

Ascendus has a bold vision of financial ascension for all. Our mission is to empower low-to-moderate income business owners with access to capital and financial education. Since our inception over 30 years ago, we have dispersed $336 million in capital to 47,000 small business owners – primarily BIPOC, women, and immigrants.