LIFT Entrepreneurs: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty for Parents

Income inequality

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Poverty, like wealth, is passed down from generation to generation. Decades of racial inequality and underinvestment in communities have created a widening racial wealth gap. The number of children living in poverty in the US more than doubled in 2022, and in California the poverty rate for children under age 18 rose from 7.5% to nearly 17%. LIFT’s approach focuses on disrupting intergenerational poverty at the point of transmission by partnering with parents to increase financial stability. Research shows that a modest $3,000 increase in parents’ income results in a 17% increase in their children’s future earnings. By taking a holistic, two-generation approach, LIFT enables low-income parents to build critical foundations that will set their families on a path of self-sufficiency for generations to come. Entrepreneurship is a critical piece of the pathway that can have a long-term impact on children of color through family and community wealth building.

LIFT-LA's holistic, strengths-based, trauma-informed model is designed to empower low-income families and overcome barriers to financial stability and mobility by helping them set and reach their goals. Our financial education and empowerment services consist of a range of programs designed to improve financial knowledge, skills, motivation, opportunities, and well-being. In 2022, LIFT launched a new entrepreneurship program based on Rising Tide Capital’s established model specifically tailored to low-income women and minority entrepreneurs. The cornerstone of the program is our Community Business Academy (CBA), an intensive 12-week course on business management skills needed to start, fund and operate a business—skills like budgeting, cash flow, pricing, marketing, bookkeeping and financing. LIFT-LA provides ongoing support to CBA graduates through two distinct components: 1) Business Acceleration Services (BAS) to provide skill-building workshops (on topics such as registering your business, developing your business website, establishing your brand voice, business taxes and accounting, etc.) and to partner new and aspiring entrepreneurs with established business owners who act as mentors to help them set goals, develop action plans and overcome obstacles to success; and 2) Credit to Capital (C2C) technical assistance services that provide entrepreneurs ready to pursue financing for their business with loans and financial products calibrated to their individual needs.

Entrepreneurship plays an essential role in developing an inclusive economy. This includes creating more equitable access to knowledge and skills for those with barriers to traditional employment, including documentation status. LA is home to 1.3 million small businesses, of which close to 60% are owned by entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds. Rising Tides’ proven entrepreneurship model, which LIFT has adopted, has produced $3.80 in local economic impact for every dollar invested in its programs. For example, with support from LIFT Entrepreneurs, Tinga Plumbing became a vendor for LA city and county contracts, ensuring that public funds are being reinvested into the city and its families. LIFT Entrepreneurs also brings local partner organizations together to layer supports. In FY24, we doubled the size of our entrepreneurship program by expanding into East LA and partnering with East Los Angeles College to offer community college non-credited courses and access to student benefits.

In our most recent program year, we engaged 132 parent entrepreneurs who participated in the Community Business Academy (CBA) and skill-building workshops in English and Spanish. Among LIFT Entrepreneurs, 78% identify as female or nonbinary and 97% identify as Hispanic/Latinx, Black, or Other. Our first cohort had a 100% completion rate and participants demonstrated a 65% increase in understanding how to manage their business’s finances and a 50% increase in understanding how to communicate their brand. Our entrepreneurs celebrated successes such as registering an electrical/air conditioning business with LA County, passing state licensing for a film and television security business, and meeting with the proper agencies and securing licensing to open a family childcare business. Having grown already to six CBAs per program year, we are now focused on deepening and expanding our offerings within our Business Acceleration Services, including a wide range of new skill-building workshops.