Wells Fargo announced Monday that it has awarded $1.25 million in grants to Communities Unlimited of Fayetteville and Southern Bancorp of Little Rock.
The grants, which will be used as loan capital by both organizations to help minority-owned small businesses manage the economic effects of COVID-19, were made through Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund.
Communities Unlimited is a woman-led Community Development Financial Institution focused on increasing access to capital with low-rate loans for small-business owners in persistent poverty counties in seven states, including Arkansas.
Southern Bancorp is a Black-led CDFI that focuses on businesses in economically distressed communities to build income and assets with attention to economic equity and a commitment to financial inclusion.
The Open for Business Fund is a roughly $420 million small-business recovery effort to help entrepreneurs across the country recover and rebuild.
(Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the grantees and how the funding would be used. Those errors have been corrected.)
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