It’s cute and quaint to think of microbusinesses as nothing more than the “Mom & Pop” restaurant down the street. And many of them are precisely that. But the fact is that microbusinesses are also developing new business models, new ways of structuring businesses, new products and services, and new ways to add value to existing products and services.

Microbusinesses are cutting edge; they are leading the way into the future. If American capitalism were working properly, these should be the very last firms that have trouble accessing capital.

New research released by the National Association for the Self-Employed last week found that approximately 3.8 million microbusiness owners hold an estimated 93% of so-called “toxic mortgages” that put them in immediate danger of foreclosure and homeless in the near future. Not only that, but mortgage brokers evidently deliberately targeted prime or near-prime microbusiness borrowers [...]

To say that Senator John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has long been concerned about the impacts of the credit markets on small businesses is a bit of an understatement. In fact, Chairman Kerry and his counterpart, Committee Ranking Member Olympia Snowe (R- ME), have been pressing the [...]

Late last month, the Social Venture Network announced the recipients of its 2008 Innovations Awards, one of which was Jonathan Lewis, founder of MicroCredit Enterprises. MicroCredit Enterprises is a private sector anti-poverty program that helps to fund microcredit programs. It’s innovation was to guarantee the loans that microfinance organizations use to capitalize their loan funds, [...]

It costs more to be poor. That sounds like a real contradiction but it is very real. For example, lower income households without relationships with financial services institutions pay premiums for simple services like cashing a pay check or paying a utility bill. Buying monthly commuter transit passes gets you a discount but, if you [...]

While many of the banks with easily recognized names are writhing in the grip of the financial markets meltdown, there’s a set of financial institutions that seem to be doing just fine. They are the community banks and non-profits that provide most of what little debt financing is available for the nation’s microbusinesses. In one [...]

A Senate Small Business Committee hearing last week explored the ongoing challenges faced by women and minorities, and small business owners from distressed urban and rural communities, when it comes to access to capital. The picture portrayed through witness testimony was pretty grim. It was also hauntingly familiar. We learn that collateral and net worth [...]