Small Business Success Stories
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Black Commercial Corridors Are Still Banking on Culture
| Next City | Next City | February 17, 2026
Historic Black commercial corridors from West Oakland to Birmingham are using cultural preservation, local ownership, and neighborhood identity to attract investment without erasing the communities that built them.
A New Loan Product Is Helping Power Brooklyn’s Co-ops
| Oscar Perry Abello | Next City | January 20, 2026
A cooperative-focused loan product in Brooklyn shows how mission-driven finance can help co-ops, small businesses, and community real estate projects grow without relying on conventional lending terms.
CDFI Assets Fell for the First Time in Years. Here’s What That Means
| Oscar Perry Abello | Next City | March 17, 2026
Community lenders continue serving small businesses and low-income neighborhoods even as some credit unions step away from formal CDFI certification, showing the importance of mission-based finance.
Birmingham: A Hub for Business Growth and Employee Ownership
| Donna Sky | Project Equity | October 9, 2025
Birmingham’s local business culture, rooted in resilience and craftsmanship, is presented as fertile ground for employee ownership that can preserve jobs, legacies, and neighborhood institutions.
Demystifying Employee Ownership Trusts
| Michelle Philippon | Project Equity | November 25, 2025
Employee Ownership Trusts offer business owners a flexible succession path that keeps companies operating, shares benefits with workers, and protects the purpose of locally rooted businesses.
When Is a Business a Good Fit for an Employee Ownership Trust?
| Michelle Philippon | Project Equity | July 14, 2025
This guide explains when small and mid-sized businesses may be ready for an Employee Ownership Trust, especially when owners want stable succession, employee benefits, and long-term local control.
Employee Ownership Month
| Project Equity | Project Equity | October 1, 2025
Project Equity highlights stories of employee-owned companies and worker-owners, showing how shared ownership can build stronger businesses and more resilient local economies.
20 Eye-Opening Statistics About Business Owners
| Michelle Philippon | Project Equity | April 29, 2025
Statistics on business-owner exits show why succession planning matters for communities, since many locally owned companies could disappear unless owners find stable transition paths.
Top 11 Employee Ownership Trends for 2025
| Michelle Philippon | Project Equity | February 13, 2025
Employee ownership is gaining attention as a strategy for succession, worker wealth-building, and preserving small businesses that might otherwise close or be sold away from the community.
The Diner Building Community in Times of Crisis
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | May 1, 2025
Ladybird Diner in Lawrence, Kansas, is profiled as a values-driven small business that uses food, fair treatment of workers, and community care to stay meaningful during hard times.
It Takes an Avalon Village
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | March 21, 2024
Avalon Village in Highland Park, Michigan, turns vacant land and abandoned spaces into community assets, showing how grassroots entrepreneurship can be part of neighborhood repair.
A Rebalancing Act: How We Restore Local Power in 2025
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | December 26, 2024
ILSR argues that rebuilding local power means strengthening independent businesses, community institutions, and locally controlled economic systems instead of relying on distant corporations.
The Bad Target: The Rise of Consumer Redlining
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | January 9, 2025
This article examines how major chains can treat neighborhoods differently, indirectly strengthening the case for locally accountable businesses that respond to community needs.
How to Successfully Take Over an Existing Business
| Matt Wagner | Main Street America | October 3, 2025
Main Street entrepreneurs share lessons for buying and continuing existing local businesses, showing how succession can save downtown shops that might otherwise disappear.
Fall 2025 Small Business Trends
| Main Street America | Main Street America | November 19, 2025
Main Street America discusses changing conditions for small businesses, including costs, consumer habits, and the need for local support systems that help entrepreneurs adapt.
8 Predictions for 2026: What Small Business Owners Need to Know
| Matt Wagner | Main Street America | February 3, 2026
Small-business trends for 2026 highlight the pressures and opportunities facing local entrepreneurs, from customer expectations to technology, succession, and community support.
Small Business Predictions for 2025
| Matt Wagner | Main Street America | January 28, 2025
Main Street America outlines major trends shaping small businesses in 2025, helping communities understand what entrepreneurs need to remain competitive and locally rooted.
Main Street Business Owners Express Significant Concerns
| Main Street America | Main Street America | May 7, 2025
A national survey of Main Street business owners documents economic anxiety, rising costs, and the importance of targeted local support for independent firms.
Small Business Resources
| Main Street America | Main Street America | 2026
Main Street America’s small-business support hub offers training, research, and networking resources designed to help entrepreneurs strengthen business skills and survive difficult conditions.
Grassroots Business Incubator Has a Plan to Support Asheville’s Black Entrepreneurs
| Next City | Next City | January 2, 2024
Blue Note Junction in Asheville combines a market, commercial kitchen, gardens, arts space, and business support to help Black entrepreneurs build wealth and community health.
Welcome to Boyfriend Co-op, Brooklyn’s New Queer Coffee Shop and Cocktail Bar
| Next City | Next City | April 1, 2025
Boyfriend Co-op in Brooklyn shows how a worker cooperative can create a welcoming queer gathering space while sharing business ownership among founders and workers.
Next City’s Top Economic Justice Stories of 2024
| Aysha Khan | Next City | January 7, 2025
Next City’s roundup highlights inclusive finance, labor rights, community ownership, and equitable development stories that show how local economies can work better for residents.
Trump Quashed Updated CRA Rules. Can California Step Up With a State CRA?
| Next City | Next City | May 13, 2025
California’s proposed community reinvestment approach would affect banks, credit unions, and nonbank lenders, with possible benefits for small businesses and underserved neighborhoods.
Cities, Here’s Your Small Business Survival Playbook
| Oscar Perry Abello | Next City | August 18, 2020
Cities can help small businesses survive by combining direct aid, technical assistance, eviction prevention, and targeted support for owners who are often excluded from relief programs.
An Overlooked Economic Powerhouse for Small Cities
| Next City | Next City | May 19, 2021
Small-scale manufacturing gives smaller cities a way to fill empty storefronts, create jobs, and build local pride around makers and neighborhood-based production.
Worker Cooperatives Can Be Wealth Builders
| Next City | Next City | December 15, 2016
Worker cooperatives are presented as a tool for building wealth among people who have been excluded from traditional business ownership and stable employment.
Sparking a Mini-Movement of Worker Cooperatives in Southeast LA
| Next City | Next City | August 28, 2018
Southeast Los Angeles organizers helped residents create worker cooperatives as a way to build economic security without relying on outside developers.
Loan Fund Proving Immigrants Are No Risky Business
| Next City | Next City | November 3, 2016
A loan fund serving immigrant entrepreneurs shows that business owners often considered risky can repay loans, create jobs, and strengthen neighborhoods when given fair access to capital.
A New Kind of Community Ownership Emerges in Baltimore
| Next City | Next City | 2024
Baltimore community ownership efforts show how residents can take a more direct role in controlling commercial spaces, supporting local enterprise, and resisting displacement.
The Economic Power of Independent Bookstores
| American Booksellers Association | ABA | 2025
Independent bookstores are described as cultural and economic anchors that create local jobs, support authors, host community events, and keep money circulating in town centers.
Farmer Co-ops Are Giving Latinx Communities Room to Grow
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | July 15, 2021
Latinx farmer cooperatives help growers share land, markets, labor, and knowledge while supplying food to local communities and creating a path toward farm ownership.
The Co-op Farming Model Might Help Save America’s Small Farms
| Lisa Held | Civil Eats | October 3, 2018
Cooperative farming gives small farmers a way to share risk, equipment, marketing, and distribution, helping them survive in a food economy dominated by larger players.
How a Northwest Co-op Is Building a Local Food Future Beyond Big Ag
| Carl Segerstrom | Civil Eats | November 5, 2020
LINC Foods in Spokane connects regional farmers to buyers, offering a cooperative alternative to consolidated food systems and strengthening local agricultural businesses.
More Latinx Farmers Own Their Land
| Muna Danish | Civil Eats | April 15, 2019
Latinx farmers moving into land ownership show how small producers can build more sustainable local food businesses when barriers to land and capital are reduced.
Little City Gardens: Growing an Urban Micro-Farm
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | March 2, 2010
Little City Gardens in San Francisco tested whether a small urban farm could operate as a viable business while supplying herbs and greens to local customers.
Faces and Visions of the Food Movement: James Johnson-Piett
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | May 10, 2010
James Johnson-Piett’s work connects food retail, neighborhood development, and local enterprise as tools for building healthier community economies.
Exploring a Decade of Big Changes in Local Food
| Civil Eats Editors | Civil Eats | November 19, 2019
Local food businesses, farmers’ markets, and regional food networks are examined as part of a changing food economy that gave small producers new opportunities.
What It Takes to Keep Independent Grocery Stores Open in Rural Communities
| Stephanie Parker | Civil Eats | January 7, 2020
Rural grocery stores in North Dakota show how independent markets survive through community loyalty, creative operations, and recognition that grocery stores are essential infrastructure.
Food Co-ops Survive by Putting Community First
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | February 28, 2018
Food co-ops face competition from large retailers, but their community ownership, local sourcing, and member loyalty can help them remain meaningful neighborhood institutions.
Do Interest-Free Loans Make Sense? No, But They Do Make a Difference
| Marcus Harrison Green | YES! Magazine | September 8, 2015
Community members crowdfund interest-free loans for local entrepreneurs, helping small businesses expand while strengthening trust between residents and neighborhood shops.
Converting Businesses to Cooperatives Just Got Easier
| Isabella Garcia | YES! Magazine | October 11, 2019
Cooperative conversion programs make it easier for retiring business owners to sell to workers, preserving jobs and local ownership during a wave of small-business succession.
The Story Behind America’s Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | June 11, 2019
Cooperative Home Care Associates shows how worker ownership can create better jobs, better care, and a durable business model in an industry known for low wages.
How Worker Co-ops Are Creating Economic Democracy
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | April 2, 2019
Worker cooperatives give employees a direct voice in business decisions, offering a small-business model based on shared ownership, accountability, and community wealth.
This Real Estate Co-op Is Fighting Gentrification
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | June 29, 2018
Community-owned real estate gives residents a way to preserve commercial and residential space, helping local businesses survive in neighborhoods facing rising rents.
The Cooperative Way to Rebuild Local Economies
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | March 21, 2013
Cooperatives are shown as practical institutions for rebuilding local economies because they keep ownership, profits, and decision-making closer to workers and communities.
These Neighbors Got Together to Buy Vacant Buildings
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | September 4, 2015
Neighbors pooled money to buy vacant buildings and rent them to local businesses, turning commercial real estate into a community-controlled tool for neighborhood revival.
A North Carolina Textile Co-op Gives Immigrant Workers a Stake in the Business
| Marjorie Kelly | YES! Magazine | July 29, 2015
Opportunity Threads gives immigrant textile workers ownership and dignity while reviving a manufacturing tradition in a North Carolina town hit by factory closures.
Immigrant Moms Were Told They Can’t Have Jobs—So They Started Their Own Tamale Co-op
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | May 31, 2016
Immigrant mothers created a tamale cooperative to earn income, support one another, and build a business on their own terms when conventional work was unavailable.
Black Neighbors Band Together to Bring in Healthy Food, Co-op-Style
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | September 11, 2017
Black residents used cooperative organizing to address food access, build neighborhood power, and create a grocery model rooted in community ownership.
Who Owns Your Grocery Store?
| Jon Steinman | YES! Magazine | December 6, 2019
Grocery ownership matters because consumer co-ops and locally accountable stores can prioritize community needs, local suppliers, and democratic control over distant shareholders.
This Trans-Owned Co-op Builds Community and Economic Stability
| Megan Wildhood | YES! Magazine | January 29, 2020
Mirror Beauty Cooperative provides equal pay, shared ownership, and economic stability for trans and undocumented Latina workers who often face exclusion from conventional employment.
The Power of Local Money for a Thriving Local Economy
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | July 9, 2021
Local currencies and community finance tools can help residents support nearby businesses, keep wealth circulating locally, and build stronger neighborhood economies.
Residents Owning Their Local Economy
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | June 16, 2022
Community ownership models let residents invest in local businesses and commercial spaces, helping neighborhoods benefit from development rather than being displaced by it.
Who Holds the Power? How One Corridor Flipped the Script on Development
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | October 3, 2025
A neighborhood corridor trust shows how residents and local business owners can shape development decisions and protect community-serving businesses.
How CDFIs Are Helping Small Businesses Create Good Jobs
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | May 26, 2021
Community development financial institutions help small businesses access capital while encouraging better jobs, stronger wages, and long-term local economic benefits.
The ROI of Employee Ownership: Insights from Three Case Studies
| Zarin Kresge | Project Equity | February 27, 2026
Three employee-ownership case studies show how ESOPs, worker cooperatives, and employee ownership trusts can help owners exit fairly, keep businesses rooted locally, and give workers a real stake in long-term success.
Small Business Survey Results
| Main Street America | Main Street America | May 11, 2026
Main Street America’s large small-business survey collects responses from thousands of owners, especially microbusinesses and rural businesses, helping local leaders understand what independent entrepreneurs need to survive.
She Started With Soap. Now She Runs a Million-Unit-a-Month Factory
| SCORE Utah | SCORE | March 20, 2026
A small maker’s soap business grew into a large production operation, showing how steady reinvestment, manufacturing discipline, and entrepreneurial persistence can transform a handmade idea into a serious company.
Four Small Businesses Share Their Employee Ownership Success
| Project Equity | Project Equity | May 2, 2025
Four small companies that converted to employee ownership show how shared ownership can strengthen workplace culture, improve benefits, deepen employee engagement, and preserve businesses during ownership transitions.
The Champion of Local Champions: Recast City’s Ilana Preuss
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | May 15, 2025
Ilana Preuss’s work with small-scale manufacturers shows how local makers, producers, and storefront businesses can become engines of downtown revitalization and neighborhood economic resilience.
8 Main Street Communities Empowered by The Hartford Small Business Accelerator Grants
| Main Street America | Main Street America | May 6, 2025
Eight Main Street communities received support for small-business accelerator spaces, shared storefronts, mentorship hubs, and grants designed to help inclusive local economies grow.
How Employee Ownership Helps Small and Mid-Sized Businesses
| Project Equity | Project Equity | March 26, 2025
Employee ownership is presented as a practical strategy for small and mid-sized companies facing succession challenges, workforce retention problems, and uncertainty about how to stay locally rooted.
Is Your Business a Good Fit for a Worker Cooperative?
| Project Equity | Project Equity | July 1, 2025
This guide explains when worker cooperative conversion can work well, especially for owners who want to reward employees, protect company culture, and keep the business alive after succession.
Proposed Pilot Program Would Spur and Sustain Development of Our Nation’s Business Districts
| Main Street America | Main Street America | December 12, 2024
Main Street America describes a proposed federal pilot program meant to strengthen local business districts, support small-business organizations, create jobs, and help downtowns recover.
Cultural Vision and Community Focus: How Melissa Mancillas Built Carino Coffeehouse
| Alexandria Julaton | SCORE Portland | 2026
Melissa Mancillas built Carino Coffeehouse as a Mexican-inspired gathering place in Vancouver, Washington, combining cultural pride, family recipes, local women-owned products, and practical SCORE mentoring.
A Learning Artspace!
| SCORE New Hampshire & Vermont | SCORE | 2026
Kim Hanson turned a former bakery basement into Dover Pottery Studio, a community creative space built around classes, memberships, pop-up pottery events, and careful small-business growth.
Small Business, Big Hearts
| SCORE Madison | SCORE | 2026
Society Cleaners shows how a family-rooted local business used mentoring, financial guidance, and persistence to move beyond survival mode while staying committed to service and community.
Wani Cakes Serves Up Nigerian-Inspired Cake Kits With a Health-Conscious Twist
| SCORE Southeast Michigan | SCORE | 2026
Wani Cakes built a Nigerian-inspired cake-kit business around cultural flavor, healthier ingredients, and product innovation, showing how immigrant and diaspora food traditions can become scalable small businesses.
Working With Hummus Goodness to Achieve Greatness
| SCORE Southeast Michigan | SCORE | 2026
Hummus Goodness grew with mentoring support, showing how a local food entrepreneur can turn a specialty product into a stronger business through planning, marketing, and operational help.
The Morgan Square
Channon Kennedy’s self-taught entrepreneurship story shows how mentoring can help a founder navigate patents, manufacturing, logistics, finance, branding, and growth into major retail channels.
South Kansas City Music Academy
South Kansas City Music Academy shows how teaching talent can become a sustainable local business when owners get help managing operations, planning, and the business side of music education.
Total Trailer
After a major revenue drop, Total Trailer used mentoring, business education, and acquisition strategy to recover and grow, offering a practical example of small-business resilience.
Cities, Here’s Your Small Business Survival Playbook
| Oscar Perry Abello | Next City | August 18, 2020
A local-government playbook shows how cities can protect small businesses through targeted financial aid, technical assistance, and programs designed to reach owners often missed by conventional relief.
Small Businesses Rise Up
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | April 20, 2021
Small Business Rising highlights independent business owners organizing for fairer market rules, stronger local economies, and protection from dominant corporations that threaten small firms.
How Small Businesses Can Recover When Disaster Strikes
| SCORE | SCORE | June 17, 2025
SCORE explains how small businesses can prepare for crises, access expert help, and rebuild after disasters, making recovery planning part of long-term business survival.
Local Policy Matters: How to Grow Independent Businesses in Cities
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | July 17, 2018
This policy guide argues that locally owned businesses are vital to healthy communities and outlines ways cities can use planning, zoning, procurement, and finance to support them.
8 Policy Strategies Cities Can Use to Support Local Businesses
| Stacy Mitchell | Institute for Local Self-Reliance | August 28, 2017
Cities can strengthen independent businesses through smarter land use, anti-monopoly policies, local procurement, small-business financing, and commercial districts that favor community ownership.
Tech Startup Allows Communities to Support Local Businesses
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | May 18, 2017
Supportland and Placemaker show how technology can help independent businesses work together, reward loyal customers, and compete against big-box stores and online platforms.
Worker Cooperatives Can Be Wealth Builders
| Next City | Next City | December 15, 2016
Worker cooperatives are presented as a path to wealth-building for people often excluded from traditional business ownership, including formerly incarcerated workers and low-income communities.
Sparking a Mini-Movement of Worker Cooperatives in Southeast LA
| Next City | Next City | August 28, 2018
Organizers in Southeast Los Angeles helped local residents build worker cooperatives as a way to strengthen existing communities rather than rely on outside development.
Loan Fund Proving Immigrants Are No Risky Business
| Next City | Next City | November 3, 2016
A lending model focused on immigrant entrepreneurs shows that small-business owners often labeled risky can build jobs, repay loans, and strengthen underserved communities when capital is accessible.
The Co-op Farming Model Might Help Save America’s Small Farms
| Lisa Held | Civil Eats | October 3, 2018
Cooperative farming models help small farmers share equipment, marketing, land access, and risk, with immigrant and refugee farmers often bringing strong cooperative traditions to the effort.
How a Northwest Co-op Is Building a Local Food Future Beyond Big Ag
| Carl Segerstrom | Civil Eats / High Country News | November 5, 2020
Spokane’s LINC Foods cooperative supports regional farmers by helping them reach buyers, survive agricultural consolidation, and build a stronger local food economy.
Exploring a Decade of Big Changes in Local Food
| Civil Eats Editors | Civil Eats | November 19, 2019
Local food experts examine how farmers’ markets, meal delivery, consumer habits, and regional food businesses changed over a decade of growing interest in food grown close to home.
More Latinx Farmers Own Their Land. Could They Make the Food System More Sustainable?
| Muna Danish | Civil Eats | April 15, 2019
Latinx farmers are moving from farm labor into farm ownership, showing how land access and support programs can help small-scale producers build more diverse and sustainable food businesses.
Little City Gardens: Growing an Urban Micro-Farm
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | March 2, 2010
Little City Gardens in San Francisco became an experiment in urban micro-farming, selling greens and herbs while testing whether a small city farm could survive as a business.
Faces and Visions of the Food Movement: James Johnson-Piett
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | May 10, 2010
James Johnson-Piett’s work focuses on strengthening neighborhood commercial enterprises, using food retail and business development to build healthier local economies.
Welcome to Commonomics: How to Build Local Economies Strong Enough for Everyone
| Laura Flanders | YES! Magazine | October 5, 2013
YES! Magazine introduces local economic models based on cooperatives, community ownership, local production, and wealth-building strategies that keep economic power close to home.
6 Ways to Fuel the Cooperative Takeover
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | March 21, 2013
This article explains practical ways to grow cooperatives, support worker ownership, and build a broader culture around shared business control and democratic enterprise.
This Trans-Owned Co-op Builds Community and Economic Stability
| Megan Wildhood | YES! Magazine | January 29, 2020
Mirror Beauty Cooperative, founded by trans and undocumented Latinas, offers a model of worker ownership, equal pay, dignity, and community stability for people often excluded from secure employment.
Who Owns Your Grocery Store?
| Jon Steinman | YES! Magazine | December 6, 2019
Consumer-owned grocery stores show how ownership structure affects accountability, local sourcing, community responsiveness, and whether food retail wealth stays in the neighborhood.
Resisting GMOs and Preserving Indigenous Culture in Rural Mexico
| Timothy A. Wise | YES! Magazine | October 26, 2019
A union of land cooperatives in Puebla, Mexico, supports food sovereignty, Indigenous culture, local markets, and community control instead of outside megaprojects.
After Years Without a Grocery Store, Greensboro Neighbors Are Building One Themselves
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | October 18, 2014
Greensboro residents organized to build a cooperatively owned grocery store after years without access to fresh food, turning a business project into a community self-help effort.
This Maine Co-op Is Trying to Bring Fresh, Local Food to 10,000 College Students
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | November 9, 2015
Maine Farm & Sea Cooperative connects local farmers and community owners to institutional buyers, showing how co-ops can open larger markets for regional food producers.
These Neighbors Got Together to Buy Vacant Buildings
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | September 4, 2015
Community investment cooperatives bought vacant buildings and rented them to local businesses, proving that neighbors can directly shape commercial revitalization and keep wealth local.
This Rust-Belt Town’s Survival Strategy Is All About Giving Workers Control
| Abby Scher | YES! Magazine | January 14, 2015
Reading, Pennsylvania’s solidarity-economy efforts show how worker control, cooperatives, and localism can become tools for rebuilding communities damaged by poverty and disinvestment.
Black Neighbors Band Together to Bring in Healthy Food, Co-op-Style
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | September 11, 2017
Black residents organized around cooperative food access, showing how grocery ownership can address food inequality while building community power and neighborhood self-determination.
Mountain Grown: Appalachia’s New Local Food Economy
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | August 22, 2013
Appalachia’s local food movement shows how farmers, markets, restaurants, and consumers can rebuild rural economies by choosing regional products and supporting small producers.
7 Paths to Development That Bring Neighborhoods Wealth, Not Gentrification
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | November 11, 2015
Cooperative development, community wealth offices, public banking, and worker-owned companies are presented as strategies for creating development that benefits residents instead of displacing them.
A North Carolina Textile Co-op Gives Immigrant Workers a Stake in the Business
| Marjorie Kelly | YES! Magazine | July 29, 2015
Opportunity Threads in North Carolina shows how immigrant textile workers can build ownership, rights, and resilience in a region hit hard by manufacturing job losses.
Immigrant Moms Were Told They Can’t Have Jobs—So They Started Their Own Tamale Co-op
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | May 31, 2016
A group of immigrant mothers created a tamale cooperative to support one another economically when conventional employment options were closed off or unsafe.
NYC’s Credit Unions Give Mom-and-Pop Stores a Chance Against Gentrification
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | October 2, 2015
Community credit unions in New York helped neighborhood businesses, including immigrant-owned shops, access capital and survive in areas facing rising rents and commercial displacement.
10 Reasons to Leave Your Company to Your Workers When You Retire
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | November 13, 2015
Selling a business to employees can preserve an owner’s legacy, keep jobs local, build worker wealth, and prevent successful small companies from disappearing when owners retire.
Revitalization and Main Street Transformation
| Main Street America | Main Street America | May 25, 2017
A Main Street project turned a historic building into a local entrepreneurship center, creating jobs and new downtown businesses while showing how preservation can fuel economic renewal.
An Overlooked Economic Powerhouse for Small Cities
| Next City | Next City | May 19, 2021
Small-scale manufacturing is framed as a powerful tool for small cities because local makers can fill storefronts, create jobs, and give downtowns new economic identity.
Small Business’s Big Moment
| Institute for Local Self-Reliance | ILSR | January 6, 2022
ILSR’s report argues that communities should invest in local entrepreneurs instead of relying on outside corporations, because more money stays local when residents own the businesses.
The Case for Employee Ownership
| Project Equity | Project Equity | May 2020
Project Equity’s case studies show how employee ownership can raise wages, preserve local companies, share profits, and turn successful businesses into long-term community assets.
Employee Ownership for Manufacturers
| Project Equity | Project Equity | September 2023
Employee ownership is presented as a tool for strengthening manufacturers, stabilizing supply chains, retaining workers, and keeping productive businesses rooted in their communities.
Cash Flow Management
SCORE’s cash-flow guide helps small-business owners understand incoming and outgoing money so they can survive slow periods, plan growth, and avoid one of the most common causes of failure.
Running a Small Business Has Become Almost Impossible
| Rosie Wolfenden | The Guardian | June 14, 2026
Small independent retailers describe how rising costs, weaker customer spending, and changing business conditions are forcing local companies to adapt quickly or risk disappearing from their communities.
Level Up: Help America’s Small Businesses Survive and Thrive
| Brookings Metro | Brookings Institution | May 26, 2026
This article argues that local small-business ecosystems are essential to economic resilience, showing how counties and local leaders can invest smarter in entrepreneurs who create jobs and keep wealth circulating locally.
More Than 500 Small Business Owners Awarded Amex Shop Small Grants
| Main Street America | Main Street America | May 20, 2026
Main Street America highlights a national grant program that provided $20,000 awards to hundreds of small businesses, helping owners grow, innovate, and support the downtowns and neighborhood districts they serve.
Main Street Revival: 3 South Carolina Downtowns That Rewrote Their Future
| South Carolina Living | South Carolina Living | May 1, 2026
Three South Carolina towns show how local restaurants, festivals, historic buildings, upper-story housing, and community events can turn struggling downtowns back into active gathering places.
How a Grandmother’s Kitchen Became a Multi-Location Catering Empire
| SCORE Houston | SCORE Houston Podcast | May 5, 2026
Britany Vinson’s story follows a food entrepreneur who started with a rented church kitchen and grew into multiple restaurant locations, refrigerated vending machines, dozens of employees, and a franchise plan.
An Immigrant Entrepreneur’s Journey Through Towing, Auto, and Beyond
| SCORE Houston | SCORE Houston Podcast | April 28, 2026
Bahaa Elabbasi’s small-business story traces a Lebanese immigrant entrepreneur who began washing cars as a teenager and built multiple automotive companies through persistence and hands-on experience.
Heritage Meets Hustle: Arab American Business Success Stories
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | April 1, 2026
This article celebrates Arab American entrepreneurs whose family networks, cultural traditions, multigenerational businesses, and community support systems help sustain local commerce.
Main Street Hill Day Supports Small Businesses and Economic Development
| Main Street America | Main Street America | March 17, 2026
Main Street advocates from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C., to make the case that local business districts, technical assistance, and Main Street programs are key to small-business survival.
Financing the Future for Main Streets
| Main Street America | Main Street America | March 10, 2026
The article explains how diversified funding, long-term planning, and state-level support can help Main Street organizations keep supporting entrepreneurs through economic uncertainty.
Building Wealth, Creating Community, Making History
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | February 2, 2026
Hello Alice profiles Black entrepreneurship as a force for wealth-building, community identity, local job creation, and small-business growth through grants and practical support.
How This Cultural District in St. Paul Is Fighting Displacement
| Next City | Next City | 2026
St. Paul’s Little Mekong district uses markets, cultural events, small vendors, and community organizing to protect neighborhood identity while supporting immigrant and minority-owned businesses.
These Grants Are a Lifeline for Altadena’s Fire-Impacted Small Businesses
| Next City | Next City | December 10, 2025
After devastating fires, grant programs helped Altadena small businesses recover, showing how local shops are tied to neighborhood stability, jobs, tax revenue, and community life.
Building a National Movement to Protect Small Businesses From Displacement
| Eliana Perozo | Next City | December 5, 2025
The Small Business Anti-Displacement Network works to keep local businesses from being pushed out by commercial gentrification, giving communities tools to preserve neighborhood-serving shops.
The Conference Where Small Business Advocates Find Their People
| Next City | Next City | October 27, 2025
Small-business advocates gathered to share strategies on community ownership, anti-displacement work, better banking access, and local policy that helps small firms survive neighborhood change.
Who Holds the Power? How One Corridor Flipped the Script on Development
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | October 3, 2025
A neighborhood corridor trust gives residents and small-business owners a direct role in development decisions, offering a model for keeping local power rooted in the community.
How to Build a Digital Small Business Coaching Program for Your Downtown
| Gustavo Ustariz | Main Street America | September 25, 2025
Main Street America explains how rural downtown programs can use coaching, digital tools, and technical assistance to help small businesses modernize without losing their local identity.
How Nashville’s Entrepreneurs Are Driving Community Transformation
| Main Street America | Main Street America | August 14, 2025
Nashville’s Nolensville Pike corridor shows how immigrant-owned restaurants, shops, and local entrepreneurs can create a culturally rich business district while still facing rising costs and safety concerns.
An Atlanta Makerspace Revitalizes Lives, Small Businesses, and a Neighborhood
| Next City | Next City | July 22, 2025
An Atlanta makerspace supports local production, apprenticeships, and neighborhood-based entrepreneurs, turning hands-on skills into small-business opportunities.
USDA Cancels More Support for Regional Food Systems
| Lisa Held | Civil Eats | July 15, 2025
Civil Eats reports on the loss of federal support for regional food systems, highlighting how farmers, food hubs, and local markets depend on stable investment to keep community-based food businesses alive.
A Santa Ana Community Land Trust Energizes Innovation and Resists Displacement
| Next City | Next City | April 21, 2025
Cooperación Santa Ana uses community ownership, land stewardship, and anti-displacement work to help residents and small businesses hold on to space in a changing city.
Happy Earth Cleaning Success Story
| Project Equity | Project Equity | April 7, 2025
Happy Earth Cleaning became Minneapolis’s first 100 percent employee-owned cleaning company, showing how succession planning and cooperative ownership can preserve jobs and reward workers.
State Initiatives to Support Grocery Stores and Address Food Insecurity
| Farmdoc Daily | Farmdoc Daily | April 23, 2025
The article surveys state efforts to support small and independent grocery stores, especially in rural and underserved communities where local markets are essential infrastructure.
Whisking Up Resilience: How Natalia Serzhanina Built Home Macaron
| SCORE Portland | SCORE | 2025
Natalia Serzhanina, an immigrant and self-taught pastry chef, built Home Macaron through years of reinvention, financial strain, family responsibilities, and small-business mentoring.
Small Business Highlight: Storrs Smokehouse
| Portland Community College SBDC | Portland Community College | February 14, 2025
Ashlin Smith purchased and revitalized Storrs Smokehouse in historic downtown Newberg, bringing new menu items, stronger operations, and a renewed future to a local restaurant.
An Atlanta Entrepreneur’s Eviction Leads to a Community Model for the World
| Next City | Next City | February 28, 2025
The Ke’nekt Cooperative in Atlanta grew from displacement into a neighborhood hub where entrepreneurs, residents, and community members gather for business support and shared opportunity.
Immigrant-Led Food Startups Face an Uphill Battle in the Pandemic
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | September 8, 2020
Immigrant food entrepreneurs describe how the pandemic disrupted sales and access to relief, but also how community support and persistence helped keep their businesses moving.
Vacant Storefronts Are Killing Our Downtowns. Small-Scale Manufacturing Can Help
| Next City | Next City | April 15, 2024
Small-scale manufacturers can fill empty storefronts, create new destinations, and bring production back into downtowns struggling with vacant commercial space.
Rethinking Streets to Drive Commerce and Connection, Not Just Cars
| Bill Vitek | Next City | January 12, 2024
Pedestrian-friendly streets, shared streets, and active public spaces can help local businesses by making commercial districts more inviting and socially connected.
When a Cafe Owner Shut Down His Business, Workers Revived It as a Co-op
| Next City | Next City | December 15, 2023
After a beloved cafe closed, workers reopened it as a cooperative, proving that employee ownership can save community businesses that might otherwise disappear.
The Dorchester Food Co-op Is Here to Shake Up Boston’s Food Ecosystem
| Next City | Next City | August 30, 2023
The Dorchester Food Co-op combines groceries, a cafe, local consignment products, and community space, creating a neighborhood-centered alternative to conventional food retail.
New York Finally Gets Its First Worker-Owned Cooperative Cocktail Bar
| Next City | Next City | June 6, 2023
The Donna Bar conversion shows how an existing hospitality business can become worker-owned while preserving a community-first culture and sharing decision-making with employees.
A Taste of Home: How Ethnic Grocery Stores Create Community
| Michelle Chen | YES! Magazine | December 22, 2022
Ethnic grocery stores serve as cultural anchors for immigrant communities, offering familiar foods, social connection, and a sense of belonging while facing modern retail pressures.
Residents Owning Their Local Economy
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | June 16, 2022
Community ownership models, including neighborhood crowdfunding and shared commercial assets, offer ways for residents to benefit from local development instead of being displaced by it.
Entrepreneurship Can Revitalize Neighborhoods in Need
| Next City | Next City | February 25, 2022
The article argues that neighborhood businesses can revive struggling places when local economic development focuses on “scaling deep” rather than chasing high-growth startups.
4 Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs Give Small Business Advice
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | March 11, 2022
Four women entrepreneurs share lessons from building small businesses, including persistence, customer connection, and practical advice for other owners trying to grow.
4 Inspiring Small Business Pivot Examples
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | February 18, 2022
These small businesses survived changing conditions by pivoting their products, services, or customer strategies, showing how flexibility can turn crisis into opportunity.
TikTok Small Business Success Stories
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | January 25, 2022
Small businesses used TikTok to reach new customers, build loyal audiences, and turn online attention into real sales during a period when digital marketing became essential.
Worker-First Restaurant Model Steals Ideas From Private Equity, and That’s OK
| Next City | Next City | December 21, 2021
A worker-first restaurant strategy explores how ownership transitions, financing, and shared equity can help hospitality businesses survive while giving workers a stake.
Has the ‘Buy Black’ Movement Made a Difference for Food Entrepreneurs?
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | May 24, 2021
Black food entrepreneurs describe the impact of consumer support, grants, marketing assistance, and national attention after the Buy Black movement gained momentum.
How CDFIs Are Helping Small Businesses Create Good Jobs
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | May 26, 2021
Community development financial institutions are helping small-business borrowers create better jobs, not just more jobs, by pairing capital with job-quality goals.
Food and Community Leading the Way to Revitalizing the Lower 9th Ward
| Next City | Next City | February 11, 2021
Sankofa Community Development Corporation’s fresh-food market project in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward shows how food access can become part of neighborhood rebuilding.
Co-operative Platform Ownership Is Keeping Artists in Business
| Next City | Next City | January 6, 2021
Artists built a cooperative alternative to large online marketplaces, keeping more control and value in the hands of creators and their communities.
The Push to Keep Independent Grocery Stores Open in Rural Communities
| Stephanie Parker | YES! Magazine | April 16, 2020
Rural grocery stores are lifelines for small towns, and owners are using creative community-based strategies to keep food access and local commerce alive.
What It Takes to Keep Independent Grocery Stores Open in Rural Communities
| Stephanie Parker | Civil Eats | January 7, 2020
Two North Dakota grocery stores show how rural communities can preserve essential local businesses through innovation, shared commitment, and local problem-solving.
Not Your Grandparents’ Franchise: A Network to Scale Up Worker Ownership
| Next City | Next City | July 11, 2019
Brightly’s cooperative cleaning franchise model shows how worker ownership can be scaled while still giving employees a meaningful stake in business success.
The Co-op With Forty Years of Making Loans to Co-ops
| Next City | Next City | May 9, 2019
A cooperative lender shows how patient capital and specialized financing can help co-ops launch, survive, and grow when traditional lenders may not understand the model.
Launching Minority-Owned Co-ops Takes More Than Good Intentions
| Next City | Next City | May 16, 2019
Minority-owned cooperatives need culturally competent support, accessible materials, capital, and trust-building to overcome barriers that conventional business programs often miss.
Bringing Fresh Produce to LA’s Corner Stores Alone Won’t Solve Food Inequality, But It’s a Start
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | August 19, 2019
Hank’s Mini Market in South Los Angeles became more than a corner store by adding healthier food options, community programming, and a safe gathering space.
Forget Venture Capitalists—This Scrappy Composting Co-op Found Startup Money
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | January 30, 2015
CERO, a worker-owned composting cooperative in Boston, raised community-based startup capital while creating green jobs in neighborhoods that needed economic opportunity.
Last of Its Kind: This Small Neighborhood Market Is Still a Big Part of Life on Kauai
| Civil Beat | Honolulu Civil Beat | March 9, 2020
A Kauai mom-and-pop market fights to stay open while serving local residents and helping nurture new entrepreneurs in a changing island economy.
Pacific Gateway Center Gives Immigrant Businesses a Boost
| Honolulu Civil Beat | Honolulu Civil Beat | August 18, 2022
Pacific Gateway Center supports first-generation restaurant owners and immigrant entrepreneurs in Hawaii, helping them launch and survive during difficult business conditions.
In Camden, a Hot Sauce Is Helping Young Urban Entrepreneurs Fight Poverty
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | July 24, 2018
A Camden youth entrepreneurship project turns urban agriculture and hot sauce production into job training, business experience, and community development.
Community Table: Helping Farmers on the Margins Thrive
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | February 20, 2015
Community Table supports immigrant and marginalized farmers by helping them organize, form cooperatives, and access markets that strengthen local food economies.
S.F. Entrepreneur Expands, Looks to Neighborhood to Fill Jobs
| Next City | Next City | May 17, 2017
A San Francisco woman-owned business expands with a commitment to hiring locally, showing how entrepreneurs can grow while staying rooted in neighborhood responsibility.
Five Ways Co-ops Are Countering Corporate Power in Cities
| Next City | Next City | October 31, 2017
Worker cooperatives, solar co-ops, and other shared-ownership models show how communities can keep economic power local rather than handing it to large corporations.
The Power of Local Money for a Thriving Local Economy
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | July 9, 2021
Local currency and cooperative programs can help low-income residents access food, find meaningful work, and keep economic value circulating close to home.
Can Food Co-ops Survive the New Retail Reality?
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | February 28, 2018
Food co-ops face pressure from big retailers, but the article shows how they can survive by balancing business discipline with community values.
Big Ideas for Small-Town Revival
| David Kidd | Governing / Next City | September 1, 2021
A local developer’s work in Ohio shows how patient investment, historic preservation, and support for small businesses can help revive struggling small-town downtowns.
Running a Small Business Has Become Almost Impossible
| Rosie Wolfenden | The Guardian | June 14, 2026
Small independent retailers describe how rising costs, weaker customer spending, and changing business conditions are forcing local companies to adapt quickly or risk disappearing from their communities.
Level Up: Help America’s Small Businesses Survive and Thrive
| Brookings Metro | Brookings Institution | May 26, 2026
This article argues that local small-business ecosystems are essential to economic resilience, showing how counties and local leaders can invest smarter in entrepreneurs who create jobs and keep wealth circulating locally.
More Than 500 Small Business Owners Awarded Amex Shop Small Grants
| Main Street America | Main Street America | May 20, 2026
Main Street America highlights a national grant program that provided $20,000 awards to hundreds of small businesses, helping owners grow, innovate, and support the downtowns and neighborhood districts they serve.
Main Street Revival: 3 South Carolina Downtowns That Rewrote Their Future
| South Carolina Living | South Carolina Living | May 1, 2026
Three South Carolina towns show how local restaurants, festivals, historic buildings, upper-story housing, and community events can turn struggling downtowns back into active gathering places.
How a Grandmother’s Kitchen Became a Multi-Location Catering Empire
| SCORE Houston | SCORE Houston Podcast | May 5, 2026
Britany Vinson’s story follows a food entrepreneur who started with a rented church kitchen and grew into multiple restaurant locations, refrigerated vending machines, dozens of employees, and a franchise plan.
An Immigrant Entrepreneur’s Journey Through Towing, Auto, and Beyond
| SCORE Houston | SCORE Houston Podcast | April 28, 2026
Bahaa Elabbasi’s small-business story traces a Lebanese immigrant entrepreneur who began washing cars as a teenager and built multiple automotive companies through persistence and hands-on experience.
Heritage Meets Hustle: Arab American Business Success Stories
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | April 1, 2026
This article celebrates Arab American entrepreneurs whose family networks, cultural traditions, multigenerational businesses, and community support systems help sustain local commerce.
Main Street Hill Day Supports Small Businesses and Economic Development
| Main Street America | Main Street America | March 17, 2026
Main Street advocates from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C., to make the case that local business districts, technical assistance, and Main Street programs are key to small-business survival.
Financing the Future for Main Streets
| Main Street America | Main Street America | March 10, 2026
The article explains how diversified funding, long-term planning, and state-level support can help Main Street organizations keep supporting entrepreneurs through economic uncertainty.
Building Wealth, Creating Community, Making History
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | February 2, 2026
Hello Alice profiles Black entrepreneurship as a force for wealth-building, community identity, local job creation, and small-business growth through grants and practical support.
How This Cultural District in St. Paul Is Fighting Displacement
| Next City | Next City | 2026
St. Paul’s Little Mekong district uses markets, cultural events, small vendors, and community organizing to protect neighborhood identity while supporting immigrant and minority-owned businesses.
These Grants Are a Lifeline for Altadena’s Fire-Impacted Small Businesses
| Next City | Next City | December 10, 2025
After devastating fires, grant programs helped Altadena small businesses recover, showing how local shops are tied to neighborhood stability, jobs, tax revenue, and community life.
Building a National Movement to Protect Small Businesses From Displacement
| Eliana Perozo | Next City | December 5, 2025
The Small Business Anti-Displacement Network works to keep local businesses from being pushed out by commercial gentrification, giving communities tools to preserve neighborhood-serving shops.
The Conference Where Small Business Advocates Find Their People
| Next City | Next City | October 27, 2025
Small-business advocates gathered to share strategies on community ownership, anti-displacement work, better banking access, and local policy that helps small firms survive neighborhood change.
Who Holds the Power? How One Corridor Flipped the Script on Development
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | October 3, 2025
A neighborhood corridor trust gives residents and small-business owners a direct role in development decisions, offering a model for keeping local power rooted in the community.
How to Build a Digital Small Business Coaching Program for Your Downtown
| Gustavo Ustariz | Main Street America | September 25, 2025
Main Street America explains how rural downtown programs can use coaching, digital tools, and technical assistance to help small businesses modernize without losing their local identity.
How Nashville’s Entrepreneurs Are Driving Community Transformation
| Main Street America | Main Street America | August 14, 2025
Nashville’s Nolensville Pike corridor shows how immigrant-owned restaurants, shops, and local entrepreneurs can create a culturally rich business district while still facing rising costs and safety concerns.
An Atlanta Makerspace Revitalizes Lives, Small Businesses, and a Neighborhood
| Next City | Next City | July 22, 2025
An Atlanta makerspace supports local production, apprenticeships, and neighborhood-based entrepreneurs, turning hands-on skills into small-business opportunities.
USDA Cancels More Support for Regional Food Systems
| Lisa Held | Civil Eats | July 15, 2025
Civil Eats reports on the loss of federal support for regional food systems, highlighting how farmers, food hubs, and local markets depend on stable investment to keep community-based food businesses alive.
A Santa Ana Community Land Trust Energizes Innovation and Resists Displacement
| Next City | Next City | April 21, 2025
Cooperación Santa Ana uses community ownership, land stewardship, and anti-displacement work to help residents and small businesses hold on to space in a changing city.
Happy Earth Cleaning Success Story
| Project Equity | Project Equity | April 7, 2025
Happy Earth Cleaning became Minneapolis’s first 100 percent employee-owned cleaning company, showing how succession planning and cooperative ownership can preserve jobs and reward workers.
State Initiatives to Support Grocery Stores and Address Food Insecurity
| Farmdoc Daily | Farmdoc Daily | April 23, 2025
The article surveys state efforts to support small and independent grocery stores, especially in rural and underserved communities where local markets are essential infrastructure.
Whisking Up Resilience: How Natalia Serzhanina Built Home Macaron
| SCORE Portland | SCORE | 2025
Natalia Serzhanina, an immigrant and self-taught pastry chef, built Home Macaron through years of reinvention, financial strain, family responsibilities, and small-business mentoring.
Small Business Highlight: Storrs Smokehouse
| Portland Community College SBDC | Portland Community College | February 14, 2025
Ashlin Smith purchased and revitalized Storrs Smokehouse in historic downtown Newberg, bringing new menu items, stronger operations, and a renewed future to a local restaurant.
An Atlanta Entrepreneur’s Eviction Leads to a Community Model for the World
| Next City | Next City | February 28, 2025
The Ke’nekt Cooperative in Atlanta grew from displacement into a neighborhood hub where entrepreneurs, residents, and community members gather for business support and shared opportunity.
Immigrant-Led Food Startups Face an Uphill Battle in the Pandemic
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | September 8, 2020
Immigrant food entrepreneurs describe how the pandemic disrupted sales and access to relief, but also how community support and persistence helped keep their businesses moving.
Vacant Storefronts Are Killing Our Downtowns. Small-Scale Manufacturing Can Help
| Next City | Next City | April 15, 2024
Small-scale manufacturers can fill empty storefronts, create new destinations, and bring production back into downtowns struggling with vacant commercial space.
Rethinking Streets to Drive Commerce and Connection, Not Just Cars
| Bill Vitek | Next City | January 12, 2024
Pedestrian-friendly streets, shared streets, and active public spaces can help local businesses by making commercial districts more inviting and socially connected.
When a Cafe Owner Shut Down His Business, Workers Revived It as a Co-op
| Next City | Next City | December 15, 2023
After a beloved cafe closed, workers reopened it as a cooperative, proving that employee ownership can save community businesses that might otherwise disappear.
The Dorchester Food Co-op Is Here to Shake Up Boston’s Food Ecosystem
| Next City | Next City | August 30, 2023
The Dorchester Food Co-op combines groceries, a cafe, local consignment products, and community space, creating a neighborhood-centered alternative to conventional food retail.
New York Finally Gets Its First Worker-Owned Cooperative Cocktail Bar
| Next City | Next City | June 6, 2023
The Donna Bar conversion shows how an existing hospitality business can become worker-owned while preserving a community-first culture and sharing decision-making with employees.
A Taste of Home: How Ethnic Grocery Stores Create Community
| Michelle Chen | YES! Magazine | December 22, 2022
Ethnic grocery stores serve as cultural anchors for immigrant communities, offering familiar foods, social connection, and a sense of belonging while facing modern retail pressures.
Residents Owning Their Local Economy
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | June 16, 2022
Community ownership models, including neighborhood crowdfunding and shared commercial assets, offer ways for residents to benefit from local development instead of being displaced by it.
Entrepreneurship Can Revitalize Neighborhoods in Need
| Next City | Next City | February 25, 2022
The article argues that neighborhood businesses can revive struggling places when local economic development focuses on “scaling deep” rather than chasing high-growth startups.
4 Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs Give Small Business Advice
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | March 11, 2022
Four women entrepreneurs share lessons from building small businesses, including persistence, customer connection, and practical advice for other owners trying to grow.
4 Inspiring Small Business Pivot Examples
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | February 18, 2022
These small businesses survived changing conditions by pivoting their products, services, or customer strategies, showing how flexibility can turn crisis into opportunity.
TikTok Small Business Success Stories
| Hello Alice | Hello Alice | January 25, 2022
Small businesses used TikTok to reach new customers, build loyal audiences, and turn online attention into real sales during a period when digital marketing became essential.
Worker-First Restaurant Model Steals Ideas From Private Equity, and That’s OK
| Next City | Next City | December 21, 2021
A worker-first restaurant strategy explores how ownership transitions, financing, and shared equity can help hospitality businesses survive while giving workers a stake.
Has the ‘Buy Black’ Movement Made a Difference for Food Entrepreneurs?
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | May 24, 2021
Black food entrepreneurs describe the impact of consumer support, grants, marketing assistance, and national attention after the Buy Black movement gained momentum.
How CDFIs Are Helping Small Businesses Create Good Jobs
| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | May 26, 2021
Community development financial institutions are helping small-business borrowers create better jobs, not just more jobs, by pairing capital with job-quality goals.
Food and Community Leading the Way to Revitalizing the Lower 9th Ward
| Next City | Next City | February 11, 2021
Sankofa Community Development Corporation’s fresh-food market project in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward shows how food access can become part of neighborhood rebuilding.
Co-operative Platform Ownership Is Keeping Artists in Business
| Next City | Next City | January 6, 2021
Artists built a cooperative alternative to large online marketplaces, keeping more control and value in the hands of creators and their communities.
The Push to Keep Independent Grocery Stores Open in Rural Communities
| Stephanie Parker | YES! Magazine | April 16, 2020
Rural grocery stores are lifelines for small towns, and owners are using creative community-based strategies to keep food access and local commerce alive.
What It Takes to Keep Independent Grocery Stores Open in Rural Communities
| Stephanie Parker | Civil Eats | January 7, 2020
Two North Dakota grocery stores show how rural communities can preserve essential local businesses through innovation, shared commitment, and local problem-solving.
Not Your Grandparents’ Franchise: A Network to Scale Up Worker Ownership
| Next City | Next City | July 11, 2019
Brightly’s cooperative cleaning franchise model shows how worker ownership can be scaled while still giving employees a meaningful stake in business success.
The Co-op With Forty Years of Making Loans to Co-ops
| Next City | Next City | May 9, 2019
A cooperative lender shows how patient capital and specialized financing can help co-ops launch, survive, and grow when traditional lenders may not understand the model.
Launching Minority-Owned Co-ops Takes More Than Good Intentions
| Next City | Next City | May 16, 2019
Minority-owned cooperatives need culturally competent support, accessible materials, capital, and trust-building to overcome barriers that conventional business programs often miss.
Bringing Fresh Produce to LA’s Corner Stores Alone Won’t Solve Food Inequality, But It’s a Start
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | August 19, 2019
Hank’s Mini Market in South Los Angeles became more than a corner store by adding healthier food options, community programming, and a safe gathering space.
Forget Venture Capitalists—This Scrappy Composting Co-op Found Startup Money
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | January 30, 2015
CERO, a worker-owned composting cooperative in Boston, raised community-based startup capital while creating green jobs in neighborhoods that needed economic opportunity.
Last of Its Kind: This Small Neighborhood Market Is Still a Big Part of Life on Kauai
| Civil Beat | Honolulu Civil Beat | March 9, 2020
A Kauai mom-and-pop market fights to stay open while serving local residents and helping nurture new entrepreneurs in a changing island economy.
Pacific Gateway Center Gives Immigrant Businesses a Boost
| Honolulu Civil Beat | Honolulu Civil Beat | August 18, 2022
Pacific Gateway Center supports first-generation restaurant owners and immigrant entrepreneurs in Hawaii, helping them launch and survive during difficult business conditions.
In Camden, a Hot Sauce Is Helping Young Urban Entrepreneurs Fight Poverty
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | July 24, 2018
A Camden youth entrepreneurship project turns urban agriculture and hot sauce production into job training, business experience, and community development.
Community Table: Helping Farmers on the Margins Thrive
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | February 20, 2015
Community Table supports immigrant and marginalized farmers by helping them organize, form cooperatives, and access markets that strengthen local food economies.
S.F. Entrepreneur Expands, Looks to Neighborhood to Fill Jobs
| Next City | Next City | May 17, 2017
A San Francisco woman-owned business expands with a commitment to hiring locally, showing how entrepreneurs can grow while staying rooted in neighborhood responsibility.
Five Ways Co-ops Are Countering Corporate Power in Cities
| Next City | Next City | October 31, 2017
Worker cooperatives, solar co-ops, and other shared-ownership models show how communities can keep economic power local rather than handing it to large corporations.
The Power of Local Money for a Thriving Local Economy
| YES! Magazine | YES! Magazine | July 9, 2021
Local currency and cooperative programs can help low-income residents access food, find meaningful work, and keep economic value circulating close to home.
Can Food Co-ops Survive the New Retail Reality?
| Civil Eats | Civil Eats | February 28, 2018
Food co-ops face pressure from big retailers, but the article shows how they can survive by balancing business discipline with community values.
Big Ideas for Small-Town Revival
| David Kidd | Governing / Next City | September 1, 2021
A local developer’s work in Ohio shows how patient investment, historic preservation, and support for small businesses can help revive struggling small-town downtowns.
