The Color of the Capital Gap: Increasing Capital Access for Entrepreneurs of Color in Massachusetts

By Trevor Mattos, Boston Indicators and Matt Brewster, P2 Advisors LLC

May 20, 2021

As a Commonwealth we should ensure that every entrepreneur with a good idea and a strong plan has a fair chance to succeed. Central to this is ensuring that capital is available and accessible to all, so that small businesses can hire employees, rent office space, conduct research, market products, and much more. But each year many businesses go without the capital they need to thrive—roughly half of small businesses nationwide have unmet need for capital, and this share jumps to two-thirds for entrepreneurs of color.

In The Color of the Capital Gap, produced by Boston Indicators and the Economic Inclusion Strategy team at the Boston Foundation, we analyze these troubling racial gaps in access to small business capital and explore a range of local strategies for expanding access.