Umpqua Impact Grant

Centro awarded with the Umpqua Impact grant

We're excited to share that we received a grant from Umpqua Bank. The award will help Centro build internal capacity and offer culturally relevant technical assistance programs to support low-income women, entrepreneurs of color, and small businesses.

Thanks to this grant, Centro will be able to invest in critical resources to bring our Entrepreneurship Suite to organizations throughout the United States. Our goal is to provide a complete high-impact enterprise-building resource to other organizations that support aspiring and current small business owners who lack business education or experience.

Centro believes in creating connections that make sense and helping underserved communities access resources that allow them to thrive and energize the local ecosystem. For that reason, in addition to supporting small businesses to apply for loans with Kiva, Centro also helps local organizations connect with the entrepreneurs that need their help.

With this year’s expansion of the Centro’s Capital Hub to San Francisco, Centro supports more entrepreneurs and organizations in San Francisco and parts of San Mateo County to provide access to Kiva’s interest-free microloans.

We are grateful to Umpqua Bank for recognizing our community initiatives and investing in us with a $450,000 grant on a 3-year financial commitment. We are honored for this award and look forward to collaborating with Umpqua Bank to build thriving and inclusive communities.

Philanthropic Ventures Foundation Gives Kudos to Centro

Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF) is passionate about sparking innovative ideas and forging collaborations, and so are we! They are also dedicated to bringing joy, simplicity, trust and effectiveness to grant-making, and we could not be happier to attest to that.

Last week, James Higa and Bill Somerville, Executive Director and Founder of PVF respectively, visited our offices in old downtown Oakland to learn about our work. Shortly after we were extremely excited to receive a grant to go towards the development of our entrepreneurship education mobile app, and a heart-warming letter of support. Here are some highlights we’re proud to share:

We are so inspired by the work you are doing to partner with low income, underserved entrepreneurs to create sustainable businesses.

Centro’s access to microloans like Kiva Zip for these entrepreneurs and your pairing, training, and mentorship with MBA students is making a difference to lift these people out of their circumstances but also revitalizing the community of Oakland as more vibrant grassroots microenterprises are added to the city.

Your idea to augment your curriculum with a mobile module so that you can scale and reach many more multiples of these entrepreneurs is a wonderful idea.

Our deepest gratitude to James and Bill, and everyone at Philanthropic Ventures Foundation for investing in the future of Centro, and the creative and courageous small entrepreneurs of our community.