Now, she’s set up shop forin two office suites in downtown Detroit and owns a fashion trailer that she uses when styling for movies and shoots. A $50,000 loan made it possible — that, and the willingness of a team to take a chance on her regardless of her credit history.
But after dropping out of college and working for a few years, her credit score was hindering her ability to obtain business loans. Activate instead uses a more holistic approach to evaluate creditworthiness, taking into account applicants’ life stories and business expertise. In lieu of a credit score, some of the required documentation includes three months of proven sales and six months of business or personal rent and utility payments.
When Green’s loan officer, Nimaj Driscoll, interviewed her, he was impressed with all the things she had already accomplished as well as the strengths she brought to the table with her prior experience as a model and freelance wardrobe stylist. The loan criteria for Activate is “significant because no one has good metrics for gauging success probabilities on ideas that are forward looking,” Morse said.“So this idea of what your projections are, what you’ve been able to do the first few months in your business, and how stable that income is and what that growth is going to look like become all new information that gives people a forward-looking chance rather than a backward-looking assessment,” Morse said.
The focus on Black entrepreneurs is also an important aspect of the program and what led CDC Small Business Finance to start in Detroit and expand to South L.A., with several other regions already in the pipeline.