Jennifer Lopez Grameen America Bronx Visit
On Friday while Jennifer Lopez was in town and leading up to Hispanic Heritage Month which starts on September 15, she visited BellaShique in her hometown of the Bronx to meet with Latina entrepreneurs from her Limitless Labs Grameen America program. These 20 women have all benefited from access to capital through Grameen over this past year. In June of last year, Jennifer announced her partnership with Grameen America to accelerate its goal of deploying $14B in loan capital to 600,000 low-income Latina entrepreneurs by 2030. (full release below)
With Jennifer’s help, Grameen has projected an unprecedented $1B disbursement in loans to Latina women this year alone.
Jennifer spent time with Bella Shique owner Lissette looking at her new beauty shop and talking about how she started her business and what her goals are for the future; then Jennifer sat down with Grameen America CEO Andrea Jung and 20 Latina entrepreneurs who have been helped through Jennifer’s initiative with Grameen to talk about success, challenges, goals.
Quotes from Jennifer during her talk:
- Jennifer to Andrea Jung about Grameen – “It’s always inspiring to come back here and see what we’re doing together and how people are getting the opportunity to do and show what they can do with their lives. That to me is the biggest, most beautiful thing that you’re affording all of us to have. So thank you.” and “ Just give me a chance. Give me a moment to get in the door. Give me an opportunity just like you’re giving everybody else and let me prove myself. And being from the Bronx we are very much about proving who we are and we’re proud.”
- “It is a life-changing thing to not be able to fund your business or have an idea or a dream that you can’t build upon because you’re just lacking capital and you go to a bank and they won’t give it to you because you’re Latina, because they don’t think that’s something they should invest in. The research that Andrea has done and Grameen has done has really been about how successful Latin women-owned businesses are and can be. So for me, that obviously hits very close to home. Not just because of what I do but because I was raised by strong Latina women. I know my grandmother would have loved to have her own shop, she was a seamstress, and she made beautiful clothes. My mother was a Tupperware lady, in her own way she was running her own business. If she could’ve had her own storefront or had enough money to do that, she never even thought that way. She didn’t even have the opportunity to think that way. I think for me that’s why it was a perfect fit for me to join with Grameen and become the national ambassador to really get that word out there so a lot more people can have that opportunity.”
- Jennifer’s advice about goals – “I do things with really good intentions always, so I believe in that. I go, this is all about love, this is all the love I feel and what I want to do and say in the world, what I want to leave behind, what I want my legacy to be, what I want my kids to think about me, my husband to think about me. Those are the things I focus on and those kinds of what we call your “pillars in life,” your meaning, the key, the true north of your life, those things are the things that keep me in line. So I don’t really listen to what other people have to say.”
- Jennifer on success – “The difference between successful people and people who just wind up kind of skating through life and not doing much of anything but are comfortable, and that’s okay, you can do that too. But if you want to be successful, if you want to be extraordinary, all you have to do is not give up. Eventually, each step just gets you there, one foot in front of the other. As long as you’re moving in that direction, that’s success in itself.”
About Lisette, owner of Bella Shique:
- Lissette is from the same area where Jennifer grew up and shares the same passion for beauty.
- Lifelong passion for beauty and skincare; after receiving her esthetician certification, she realized she was being underpaid compared to other junior estheticians at the salon she worked at. This motivated her dream to start her own spa to offer skin care and microblading.
- After meeting Jennifer at her Halftime documentary premiere last year, with the help of loans from Grameen, Lissette turned her big dream into a reality! On October 30th, 2022, she proudly opened her first retail location.
- Lissette’s business continues her family’s legacy of entrepreneurship, as her mother, sister, nieces, and daughter (Priscilla) are all business owners in the Grameen America program.
One of the entrepreneurs in the room, Maria, told Jennifer she was working at the hotel where her film “Maid in Manhattan” was shooting. Maria interacted with Jennifer at the front desk and asked her for one piece of advice – Jennifer told her “Either you work for others, or you make it happen for yourself.” Those words motivated her to take on new challenges and become more independent. Maria started her own tire business in the Bronx and has since received loans from Grameen to grow her business.
Friday, September 9 at Bella Shique in the Bronx
RELEASE FROM THE LAUNCH OF THE INITIATIVE
Jennifer Lopez Partners with Grameen America to Accelerate its Goal to Deploy $14 Billion in Loan Capital to 600,000 Low-Income Latina Entrepreneurs by 2030
NEW YORK, June 9, 2022 – Global icon Jennifer Lopez and Grameen America, the nation’s fastest-growing microfinance organization, today announce they are partnering to advance financial empowerment for Latina businesswomen historically excluded from the financial mainstream. Grameen America provides access to business capital, credit- and asset-building, financial education, and peer support to enable women living below the federal poverty level to boost their income and create jobs in their communities. The new partnership seeks to advance both Lopez’s latest philanthropic project, Limitless Labs, which aims to support Latina-owned small businesses, as well as Grameen America’s goal to empower 600,000 Latina entrepreneurs across 50 U.S. cities with $14 billion in life-changing business capital and 6 million hours of financial education and training by 2030.
Lopez joins as Grameen America’s National Ambassador to advocate for and mentor the organization’s network of over 150,000 small businesses run by women in predominantly Latinx communities across the United States. Limitless Labs, the home for all of Lopez’s philanthropic and values-driven work, aims to uplift, educate and provide essential resources to underserved communities like the one in The Bronx where Lopez grew up. Additional areas of focus include youth empowerment, civic engagement, and empowering women with the confidence to live limitlessly.
Grameen America envisions an inclusive society in which all entrepreneurs, regardless of gender, race or income, have access to fair and affordable financial services to support upward economic mobility. The organization provides ongoing financial education to members and reports microloan repayments to credit bureaus to enable participants to build their financial identities. Since its founding in 2008, Grameen America has served over 150,000 women in 23 U.S. cities, distributed $2.6 billion in loans, and helped create and maintain 157,000 jobs. The organization’s repayment rate is over 99% and its members have achieved an average credit score of 644 through participation in the program.
To kick off her role as National Ambassador, Lopez will motivate, promote, and inspire Latina businesswomen, helping them understand the pathway to financial independence and literacy through joining the Grameen America microloan program. Lopez will mentor the organization’s existing Latina business owners, educating them on the importance of credit and asset-building and developing a savings program to promote financial resilience. The partnership will also enhance Grameen America’s financial education and training platform, prioritizing digital and multimedia resources to promote financial literacy.
Despite gaps in opportunity, Latina entrepreneurs represent the fastest-growing, yet untapped, segment of U.S. small business owners. In the past 10 years, the number of Latino-owned small businesses has grown 44% compared to just 4% for non-Latinos, according to a recent report by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. The same report notes that Latino-owned businesses are significantly less likely than white-owned businesses to receive loans from national banks, despite demonstrating strong lending criteria. For women, financial exclusion is disproportionately higher as only 4% of all small business loans from mainstream financial institutions go to women, according to a report by the National Women’s Business Council.
ABOUT GRAMEEN AMERICA
Founded by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, Grameen America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit microfinance organization dedicated to helping women who live in poverty build small businesses to create better lives for their families. The organization offers microloans, training, and support to transform communities and fight poverty in the United States. Since opening in January 2008, Grameen America has invested over $2.4 billion in more than 150,000 low-income women entrepreneurs. Opening originally in Jackson Heights, Queens, Grameen America has expanded to 22 cities in Austin, TX, Boston, MA, Camden, NJ, Charlotte, NC, Chicago, IL, Connecticut, Dallas, TX, Fresno, CA, Houston, TX, Indianapolis, IN, Los Angeles, CA, Memphis, TN, Miami, FL, Newark, NJ, New York City, NY, Omaha, NE, Oakland, CA, San Antonio, TX, San Jose, CA, Trenton, NJ and Union City, NJ.
