“Dream big and love big,” Rev. Cecil Murray told faith leaders and businesspeople gathered at the University Southern California for the third annual Faith-based Small Business Summit. The summit, themed “where the mission meets the marketplace,” aimed to help attendees succeed in their endeavors and give back to the community.
The Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement co-hosted the gathering of about 375 with the USC Small Business Diversity Office.
Small business owners in minority communities struggle to access the funding, contracts, tools and skill sets they need to sustain themselves over time, Rev. Najuma Smith-Pollard, program manager at the Cecil Murray Center, explained. “Some small businesses are run by an individual who has a dream or idea but they don’t have the capacity to make it work.”
After Murray offered his inspirational message in the invocation, Smith-Pollard moderated a panel on the practical issues of raising capital for businesses and non-profit organizations.
Post recession, there has been a sharp decline in small business loans to the African-American community, Sharon Evans, CEO of the Business Resource Group, pointed out during the panel. She has made it her mission to restore equity in access to capital.
But in order to qualify for a loan, businesses need to show that they have the ability to use those funds well, panelists agreed.
Capacity is the No. 1 factor that funders look to when determining whether to grant money to an organization or business, Rev. Mark Whitlock, executive director of the Murray Center, said. Other panelists shared the “5 C’s of credit,” which also include collateral, character, capital and conditions—with cash-flow a sixth.
Faith-based nonprofit organizations can help small business owners through entrepreneurial and financial literacy training programs, as well as micro-lending programs. “We all have entrepreneurs in our congregations,” Smith-Pollard explained after the event.
Still, nonprofits must be able to show results, too.
A majority of the audience raised their hands when Claudia Viek, CEO of CAMEO, asked their interest in starting micro-lending programs. People in faith-based organizations know the needs of their community, she said, and can collaborate across the nonprofit and business worlds to meet those needs. For instance, micro-lender ACCION San Diego partners with a small business development center to help their businesses build capacity to succeed.
Whitlock pointed to his church’s community development corporation as another example of collaboration. The Christ our Redeemer Community Development Corporation (COR CDC) works with Vander Capital Partners to buy and refurbish apartment buildings. Vander Capital Partners pays COR CDC to provided social services in the building, benefiting from a community development tax credit. COR CDC also owns 1 percent of the buildings and pays rent to the church as it operates out of its facilities.
A small and medium-size nonprofit that has never worked on a development wouldn’t be able to access funds without such a partnership.
“Capacity and collaboration are the keys,” Smith-Pollard concluded, summarizing the panel.
Other panels during the daylong summit discussed social enterprises and tax issues. Keynote speaker Beverly Kuykendall, president of the American Medical Depot, addressed the connections between the faith-centered businesses and federal procurement initiatives, and how these, together, present the opportunity to have meaningful economic impact to local communities.
The U.S. Small Business Administration, the Office of Councilman Curren D. Price, Jr. and AmPac Tri-State CDC, Inc. also partnered on the event.
The Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement provides a financial literacy and capacity building training to help faith leaders support entrepreneurs in their communities. To find out more information about the next training, please sign up for our newsletter, and indicate your interest in the Murray Center.
The Good Friday Pilgrim Prayer Walk Along Ocean Beach's Historic Church Row ran about 1 mile down Sunset Cliff Boulevard, starting at St. Peter's By the Sea Lutheran Church. Each stop represented one of the Stations of the Cross and involved a unique activity, organized by a church.
At St. Peter’s by the Sea Lutheran Church, Rev. Bekki Lohrmann pointed the pilgrims to a poster telling the stories of people who had been wrongly convicted, just as Jesus had been.
Participants walked a block to the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, where Westminster Presbyterian Church (located about a mile inland) had set up a table for the second station – Jesus meeting his mother. There participants were asked what they had to let go of, just as Jesus let go of his mother and disciples on his final day. As the ocean waves rolled in and out below them, they could write something on a piece of paper, drop it into a bowl of water and watch the paper dissolve. Michael Christiansen, a member of CRCC's Compelling Preaching cohort and one of the organizers, places a piece of paper in the bowl.
Despite a light drizzle, pilgrims started the walk jovial, with friends chatting and laughing as they walked between stops. Some knew each other from their respective faith communities, while others greeted neighbors who went to different churches.
Pilgrims covered half the mile walk next, heading to the parking lot of a Masonic temple where Submerge Church rents space. The growing church, planted in 2022, offered a reflection on Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry his cross. Participants could push a seed into a large pot of soil, contemplating death and life as they touched the soil. The church offered participants “pocket Jesuses” – a small figurine that members can carry with them and share.
All Souls Episcopal Church, another church located inland, set up a station in front of a funeral home that commemorated Veronica wiping the face of Jesus. After reciting traditional prayers, people could write or draw those in need of compassion onto small pieces of cloth that represented Veronica’s cloth.
A block away, OB One Church describes itself as “church for imperfect people.” Brandon Follin, student and discipleship pastor, gave a short sermon on the church’s patio, reflecting on how, like Jesus, we all fall under the weight of our burdens. Participants held on to small rocks as he spoke, then placed them in a bucket, before heading to the next stop.
Point Loma Community Presbyterian Church set up on the lawn of the recently closed Water’s Edge Faith Community, on a property owned by the United Methodist Church. The tone of the walk grew somber as participants wrote down their sins on red paper, folded them and then nailed them to a board, before entering a darkened tent where a TV streamed images of the cross.
Across the street, Sacred Heart Catholic Church led participants through a reading and a prayer about Jesus’ death before offering them time to reflect in a memorial space and write down the names of loved ones who had died.
Passing by Bethany Lutheran Church, the walk ended in the darkened sanctuary of Resurrection Ocean Beach, representing the tomb of Jesus. The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, whose offices are on the church property, opened Resurrection in 2024 as a mission church. The previous congregation broke from the Episcopal Church, became Holy Trinity Anglican Church and moved next door to share a sanctuary with Bethany Lutheran Church. Neither Bethany nor Holy Trinity participated in the walk.
