The Social Justice Fund (SJF) continues to provide Brooklyn with a helping hand.
On March 9, the Social Justice Fund announced that in conjunction with The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) and the Renaissance Economic Development Corporation, they have created the new Elevating Business Loan Program. The program is designed to provide small businesses in New York City with affordable loans, free financial counseling, and multilingual training services.
The SJF and TAAF were set up by Joe and Clara
Wu Tsai, the former an outgrowth of the team’s $50 million commitment to Brooklyn following demonstrations against George Floyd’s murder in 2020; the latter an organization the Tsais helped found and finance the next year to protect Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders’ “fundamental right to belong and prosper, free from cycles of discrimination and violence.” Renaissance is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming low-to-moderate income communities and under-resourced entrepreneurs, also founded by Asian-American leaders. The program is not limited to Asian-Americans.
It has been challenging for small businesses in New York City. The New York Times reported that 8,400 businesses closed their doors in the second quarter of 2025. With costs rising everywhere we look, it’s a lot harder to maintain a business, let alone thrive as an owner. With so many barriers and challenges facing businesses, they have a lot working against them. For minority business owners, those barriers become amplified.
“When we talk to [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] small businesses, and oftentimes, access to capital is still the biggest constraint,” TAAF CEO Norman Chen told Documented. “Especially for small business owners whose first language isn’t English and who may not be familiar with the lending process or able to access services in their native languages to get access to capital.”
To increase access to capital, the new Loan Program will offer loans of up to $100,000 to aid small businesses in managing cash flow, purchasing equipment, improving storefronts, and plenty more. The Program is available to qualified small businesses across New York City and assistance can be accessed in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Korean.
Renaissance has been helping New Yorkers since 1997 and has helped thousands of people along the way. This connection with the SJF aids in their mission and will help new entrepreneurs reach new horizons. One of their success stories is Pho Table, a chain of Vietnamese kitchens across Brooklyn.
“I think they’ve been really helpful, to be honest,“ Matthew Vuong, owner of Pho Table, told NetsDaily. “But it really depends on how much you use their resources that they have available. Some people, they’ll go in and they’ll ask for help to apply for maybe one or two loans, grants, permits, or whatever the case may be. But they have a lot more programs that you can dive into. It just kind of depends on your level of involvement you want to be in.”
Pho Table has found a lot of success since opening in 2024 and has plans to open new locations in downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City in the near future.
Partnership has been a consistent theme of the Social Justice Fund’s work. Over their five plus years, they have worked with various organizations to address a multitude of causes across New York. It’s a big part of their mission and something they will look to build on as they move in to the future.
“The mission continues in terms of connecting with trusted partners in the community that have the relationship with the different communities,” Gregg Bishop, Executive Director of the Social Justice Fund, told NetsDaily. “And every partnership that we build, we want to make sure that these organizations are not only connected to different communities across Brooklyn, but we also want to make sure they’re trusted. And not only trusted, but they deliver a service that is in line with the sort of excellence that Clara [Wu Tsai] would expect. So Renaissance is that partner…
Small businesses are the backbone of the city. It’s the grocery stores, the nail salon, the hair salon, and of course the restaurants that make our city so enjoyable and livable, and it’s our small business owners that are the backbone of that. And so we continue to look at ways we can invest to help our small business community. So this is just one of many more initiatives that are coming.“
As the SJF moves into the next part of their work, partnerships like the one with Renaissance and the TAAF could provide New York City with another much-needed boost.
Being able to pour into community goes a long way. With the state of the world being what it is, you need to work with those around you to find and maintain success. As the SJF embarks on a new adventure, the spirit of teamwork and community will go a long way in helping make a better, more accessible New York for all.
