In 2019, after 10 years of working out of his home, Sergio Gonzalez had grown his photography and event services business, Dreamers Films, to the point where he could move to a storefront.
“It was a big step,” said Gonzalez, “but we had a lot of excitement — and goals.”
Then the pandemic hit and his business trickled almost to nothing. He almost closed the studio because he couldn’t pay the rent.
To the rescue came the Latino Entrepreneurial Network of Southeastern Wisconsin. Since 2005, LEN has promoted entrepreneurial awareness and education to Latinx individuals and businesses through bilingual coaching, professional development and networking. In spring 2020, LEN received $150,000 from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation to offer small grants and loans to businesses with 20 employees or less, businesses that were likely not eligible or not successful in applying for federal stimulus dollars.
In its relief phase, the program, called Más Fuertes (Even Stronger), disbursed $3,000 each to 25 Latino businesses — typically enough to keep their doors open. Nelson Soler, LEN’s executive director, said Más Fuertes has been effective because LEN could act quickly.
“Most of government entities took three to four months to deploy funds,” he said. “When the Foundation gave us the grant, we deployed all the funds in about 10 days.”
Gonzalez is deeply grateful for his grant. “It gave me the faith that I could keep going,” he said.
According to Ian Bautista, the Foundation’s senior director for civic engagement and co-leader of its MKE Civic Response Team, which recommended the grant, small businesses are the economic foundation of the Latinx community. However, the federal and state relief programs designed to help them stay afloat during the pandemic often require business acumen — such as a business plan, collateral, even email, not to mention fluency in English — that these small business owners often do not have.
“When we look historically, those businesses are undercapitalized by virtue of our nation’s intimidating financial system,” he said. “Yet this sector outperforms other areas of the economy because of sheer commitment to hard work and creative use of resources.”
In its recovery phase, Más Fuertes is providing ongoing technical assistance in such areas as preparing applications, developing budgets, using a spreadsheet and using Zoom and other videoconferencing services.
LEN also offers an emergency hotline, one-on-one coaching and online seminars in English and Spanish. Seminars include business topics such as tax reduction strategies and personal topics such as handling home mortgage payments during COVID.
Soler said that LEN was especially pleased by the Foundation’s support because it helped them attract additional funding. Associated Bank, for example, gave $7,500 to set up a computer lab at LEN for small business owners to use.
“Not only did the Foundation’s support help businesses threefold, it helped our credibility,” he said.