Advisory Services
Elevate Small Business
LEAF’s Elevate Small Business team provides solutions-oriented advisory services to underserved business owners in Massachusetts.
The Elevate Team Approach:
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Meet one-on-one with small business owners
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Provide valuable analytical services at no cost to the business
We want our communities to participate in the success of our economy
The Elevate Small Business team consists of highly skilled financial analysts who work with small business owners. LEAF's team of analysts help find solutions to their business' financial challenges, evaluate growth opportunities, and improve their personal credit.
Elevate's Origins
Since the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund's (LEAF) founding in 1982, it has offered advice to small businesses, starting with cooperatives.
In 2016, LEAF saw the widening racial wealth gap in Boston and the need to address it. In partnership with local, community, and business support organizations, such as Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) and the Commonwealth Kitchen, LEAF offered financial advisory services to low-income businesses who faced barriers to accessing capital in underserved Boston neighborhoods.
As the need for Elevate's services grew, it expanded from serving the city of Boston to the state of Massachusetts.
Loans to Small Businesses
Elevate UpLift Procure Tool
The UpliftProcure initiative is a solution for two unmet market needs.
- Anchor-institutional buyers seeking to diversify their supplier pool with local, small businesses.
- Capable, local, underserved, small businesses lacking access to local institutional markets.
How UpLift Procure Works
The UpliftProcure (UP) Platform initiative is an online platform that applies specialized technology with proprietary content and financial services. These services address obstacles that are preventing small businesses in underserved communities from getting access to institutional markets.
Born out of a Call to Action
A 2015 Federal Reserve of Boston study galvanized LEAF to support the financial wellbeing of traditionally underserved communities in the Commonwealth by offering local small business advisory services. The study showed that the wealth disparity in communities in Boston was the result of, entrepreneurs of color lacking access to capital to start, stabilize, or grow their own businesses.
LEAF’s Elevate Small Business is a founding member of the Coalition for an Equitable Economy.
*This button below will bring you to a new website: Coalition for an Equitable Economy.
Browse Through the Elevate Small Business Clients!
Dedicated Partners
Elevate could not serve our small businesses without the help of these funding partners:
Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration