Our team at OBDC was thrilled to read a recent article in San Francisco Business Times about our borrower, Noble Brewer. OBDC’s loan to Claude Burns, CEO of Noble Brewer, closed in December 2014, and since then, his business has taken off, creating an artisan beer tasting community that brings homebrews to life.
OBDC is now serving US military veterans across California. In March 2015, OBDC closed our first loan to a small business located outside of Northern California. We are thrilled to announce that our veterans program is available to US military veterans and their spouses throughout the state of California.
The San Francisco Business Times, in conjunction with SF Pride in June, is planning to compile and publish a list of businesses who self-identify as LGBT-owned. OBDC is thrilled to announce our nominations from our portfolio of borrowers.
In March, the Bay Area A-List 2015 Winners were announced. This annual list received more than 35,000 verified votes on the 6,100 nominees of great Bay Area businesses. OBDC is proud to support many of the top-10 winners this year. We tweeted about all of these businesses last week, but in case you missed it, we present the list here.
This week OBDC Small Business Finance was selected as part of Better Bay Area, a program supported by Mission Asset Fund, Google, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Y&H Soda Family Foundation to bring the power of lending circles to a larger network of communities across the Bay Area. OBDC is planning to use lending circles to support borrowers in building credit, receiving financial education, and in growing their networks to help their businesses thrive.
The Sustainable Business Alliance and The East Bay Express have come together to produce a “Good Money Guide” for Bay Area Small Businesses. OBDC Small Business Finance is thrilled to be a part of this project.
OBDC is excited to celebrate the businesses we support. This month, we’ve profiled Karen Roberts of HauteButch, a clothing company offering their customers a line of masculine and gender-neutral clothing and footwear designed for women’s bodies.
Finding work has been a challenge for many Americans in the past few years, and United States military veterans haven’t been immune to difficult job searches. In particular, male veterans under 25 returning home face an unemployment rate of over 24%.
We know that business education can be a critical service for all entrepreneurs. As a result, in January, Noah Harris, Assistant Vice President – Veteran’s Program, will facilitate a one-time workshop, and then, in February, a 10-week course, offering aspiring entrepreneurs who are US veterans a chance to build their business plans.
The Small Business Administration hosted a Google Hangout of veteran women small business owners in celebration of Veteran’s Day last week (follow the conversation on Twitter with #vetshangout).
