We lead socioeconomic change by providing economic opportunity through entrepreneurship education, financial literacy and leadership programs to low-income, minority and women entrepreneurs who want to establish economic freedom and financial stability through small business creation.

OUR MISSION

As a 501c3 non-profit organization, our mission is to build thriving communities by providing underserved, low-income entrepreneurs with entrepreneurship education, one-on-one business coaching, mentorship, and access to capital.

Who We Serve

77% women
93% Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC)
60% Hispanic (including mixed)
37% Spanish Speaking

Why we exist

Small business ownership offers itself as an economic opportunity that can create generational wealth while positively transforming communities. However, the current microenterprise development ecosystem is not well-equipped to support the growth prospects of small businesses in the US. This problem is further exacerbated amongst women and entrepreneurs of color who continue to face barriers in starting or growing small businesses, accessing capital and networks essential for their growth and support.

Since 2010, Centro Community Partners (Centro) has dedicated itself to facilitate equal access to entrepreneurship training, financial literacy programs, access to capital, and one-on-one business advisory services with a focus on women and entrepreneurs of color. Given our resources, experience working with underserved entrepreneurs and agility to respond to the entrepreneurial needs, Centro is uniquely positioned to address these challenges and lead collaborative efforts to empower women and minority entrepreneurs in the Bay Area and beyond.

Theory of Change

Innovation, entrepreneurial desire, and motivation are distributed equally regardless of race, but opportunity and resources to exercise that innovative and entrepreneurial spirit are not. We seek to fuel the imagination and the will of low-income and communities of color entrepreneurs by providing them resources, systems information, and the right financial tools. In doing so, impacted communities can exercise their self determination and change entire communities by breaking the cycle of poverty through their own investment and entrepreneurial spirit.

Our steps-to-prosperity model begins with the idea that all individuals have the capacity to break the cycle of poverty and build thriving communities through entrepreneurship, as long as they have access to educational and financial products that are tailored to their needs, and are culturally appropriate.

We believe that the development of healthy small businesses, particularly those owned and run by low-income and underserved individuals, is one of the most effective sources of economic and social benefits. These benefits flow efficiently from entrepreneurs to families and neighbors, transforming entire communities. This theory informs all of our signature programming as well as the products we develop.

View below the graphic essay describing our theory of change.

Graphic Version

Our Approach

Centro is committed to providing access to entrepreneurial opportunities and resources to underserved and under resourced communities. Our approach strategically targets underrepresented populations and communities of color.

We also incorporate practices that embody an open sourced asset based capacity building approach for community organizations interested in paving new ground in entrepreneurial spaces. This national deployment strategy is designed to increase capacity and expertise amongst community based organizations that typically do not work in the entrepreneurial space due to the lack of expertise.

The Centro Business Planning App is central to our national deployment strategy that focuses on increasing entrepreneurial capacity and content understanding across non-profits that serve communities of color. We recognize that there are many barriers for BIPOC entrepreneurs in meeting minimum threshold requirements to even be considered by Community Financial Development Institutions (CDFI). Moreover, many CDFIs may not have trusted relationships or linguistic capabilities to effectively work with communities of color. On the other hand, there are many community based organizations that diligently work with communities of color on a wide spectrum of social justice issues, have long standing trusted relationships, and are legitimate messengers and brokers. Unfortunately, many of these same organizations, for a variety of reasons, may lack the expertise to support entrepreneurship programs within the array of services they provide.

Centro’s national deployment strategy sets out to change that by providing non-profit agencies access to our free app and virtual TA support in an effort to bridge the disconnect between CDFI systems and entrepreneurs of color.

Our Programs

To assist entrepreneurs and catalyze small business growth, Centro provides the following programs and services:

Business Planning App

Walking entrepreneurs through the business planning process and connecting them with local lenders and business support resources. Learn more.

Technical Assistance (TA)

Providing entrepreneurs with Basic and Advanced workshop series, as well as Bootcamps and 1-on-1 support.

Capital Hub

Helping entrepreneurs access capital through Kiva loans, as wells as local CDFIs and SBA loans. Learn more.

Entrepreneurship Suite

Capacity building service for organizations looking to deliver entrepreneurship programs in their communities using Centro’s tools, training and resources. Learn more.

OUR IMPACT

In 2010, Centro set out to make an impact in the entrepreneurial space and specifically within communities of color. Early on, we were ambitious and established an aspirational vision that we hoped to achieve.

In our last year, we are proud to benchmark our impact. A summary of our 2022 Impact Report can be found below:

For more information, **please download our full impact report here.**

From August 2021 through July 2022, Centro provided 372 entrepreneurs with support through 49 programs.
While entrepreneurs enter the program at different stages, 54% had not yet started selling their products or services.
Within the first year,
- 59% of the graduates were able to start selling the products or services;
- 31% started paying themselves something and 61% of them reported that it was a living wage;
- 20% hired someone else to help them with their business;
- 14% received their first loan within the last 12-months.

Centro also reached out to entrepreneurs who graduated more than 12 months ago to share their annual revenue, labor costs and access to capital. Following are some of the impact numbers:

73% reported having sales, generating a total annual revenue of $11M+ and an average annual revenue of $58,000+.
Of those with sales, 71% shared that they incurred labor costs over the last 12 months, resulting $3,800,000+ in total labor costs and an average of $28,000+ per business.
28% of the entrepreneurs reported having accessed capital since graduating Centro’s program, representing a total of $1,200,000.

Our investors

Centro strives to partner with diverse sectors that can strengthen the entrepreneurship field. We are proud to bring together funding partners that represent the philanthropic, public, and private sectors. Below are some of our financial supporters, but please click to see all of our financial and in-kind donors.