Can you give me an overview of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce ?
Our mission is pretty simple . It ’ s to work with our businesses and to help them grow and develop and to provide access to the Hispanic market . … We offer business education , resources , connections , whatever it is that a small business might need as an extra arm to help them in their day-to-day process . A lot of small businesses … don ’ t necessarily have an HR department , a marketing department , a finance department , and so the chamber ends up acting as arms for them to connect them to those additional resources .
The Hispanic Chamber , we have the additional responsibility that I take really seriously , and that ’ s the advocacy part . … There ’ s a lot of rules and regulations that are happening within the state , on the regional level and on the local level . Sometimes ( business owners ) are unaware of it , just because all of us get siloed into what we ’ re doing . And so we need to be that additional voice .
The Latino community has been hit especially hard by the coronavirus . How has your organization been working to support the community ?
Things have hit especially hard here for many reasons . There ’ s information that needs to be shared , not just in the language , but with an understanding of the culture . … It has been , actually , a lot of connecting personally by phone ( and saying ), “ Just so you know , this application process is available to you . Do you know how to fill this out ? What can we connect you with to make sure that you ’ re able to access this ?”
This pandemic is detrimental , there ’ s no way around it . … But then there ’ s also businesses that have found , ‘ Hey , I didn ’ t realize that I could have an e-commerce platform . I can suddenly reach people around the United States that I didn ’ t before .
We have been doing a lot more working with some of our media partners ( to share information ). We ’ ve done some work with Telemundo . … We worked with some of our print and radio partners , additionally , getting information out that route . We have additional webinars that are very specific about the ( Payment Protection Program ) loan and the forgiveness part that ’ s happening and what people will need to do .
We ’ re getting ready for our ( 2020 ) State of Hispanics , which is normally our public policy forum that we do every fall during Hispanic Heritage Month ( Sept . 15-Oct . 15 ). … We are looking at how to do this in a virtual format that is both entertaining and informative and dynamic . The cool thing , though , is that because it is virtual , we actually have been able to expand where our speakers and panelists come from . … Now that we don ’ t have to fly people in , they could be anywhere .
Just 10 percent of Latino business owners who applied for PPP loans were approved , compared to 17 percent of white business owners . Why do you think this is , and are the loans doing enough ?
Well , for anyone that ’ s received a loan , it ’ s needed . And so , in that way , it works well . But there is a lot of work to be done . … Let ’ s be honest , for almost everyone , including us , ( the PPP ) was a little confusing when it first rolled out . A big issue was not having that banking relationship ( to help clarify the terms of the loan ). … Some of our Latino businesses have been banking , a lot of it because of name recognition , with a larger bank that wasn ’ t able to do that one-on-one . They went through an online portal , there was no one really to talk to you . … I know that we had businesses that were able to do well going through ( for example ) F & M Bank , a smaller community bank that had more of that one-on-one and developed that relationship with them .
This is a census year . Has SHCC done any outreach to encourage people to participate ?
At our State of Hispanics that we did two years ago , we brought in a whole census panel . … We had everyone coming in from the Latino Community Foundation and … the National Association of Latino Elected Officials . … Among the 200 , 250 people that we had there in that room , we had a good
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