Peoples Partners with Community Forge to Help Entrepreneurs During COVID-19

There are few facets of life that have not somehow been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it’s education, health and well-being, or business, the past year has presented many considerable challenges. Here at Peoples, we believe that small businesses are a vital part of the Pittsburgh community, and they need our support now more than ever. This year, we’re teaming up with Community Forge once again to help support their business incubator program and to assist entrepreneurs in Wilkinsburg and surrounding communities.

Peoples first partnered with Community Forge to pilot the first iteration of the Bloom Program in 2019, serving two black female business owners who were given access to business coaching for six months and $2,000 for professional services. As a result, both participants were able to address tax liabilities and their company’s legal status. Peoples also supported these two entrepreneurs with digital support, spreading awareness about their businesses through web articles and social media. You can read more about the entrepreneurs behind local businesses Go Phleb and K-Theater.

Since 2019, one of those business owners even grew out of her original space, moving to a larger downtown property. The other had the opportunity to pursue a graduate degree to further her expertise. The pilot of this business incubator initiative officially became the Bloom Program. It has continued to grow to provide more services to more entrepreneurs — especially during the pandemic.

Now in its first official year, the Bloom Program is serving 30 local business owners through coaching and resources, including access to a business coach, funds for necessities like accounting or web design, exposure to an internal consultant network, and participation in financial investment opportunities.

“Bloom was inspired by the goal of getting more black-owned and minority-owned businesses into resourced environments to help them flourish,” said Bethany Hallam, community manager at Community Forge. “We see that a lot of business owners lean on their personal privileges such as social network or financial capital to get going, and we wanted to emulate an environment that was built for success.”

After piloting the program for two years and partnering with the RK Mellon Foundation and Peoples, Community Forge was able to accept another round of applications to the program this past fall. The program now supports 30 local business owners — aiding in the challenges of COVID-19 — with hopes to expand even further in the future.

“We knew of the need in the community as we have been speaking to talented individuals across the East End and Mon Valley for the past three years,” Hallam said, “but Community Forge was often under-capacity to service all requests for support."

“The Bloom program was developed over the course of three years as Community Forge piloted the best ways to support new entrepreneurs where we could be flexible yet offer seriously needed resources,” she added.

Peoples is excited to continue our partnership with Community Forge, and to help support local businesses. Stay tuned for future articles highlighting the talents of some of these exceptional entrepreneurs.