The Boston Beer Company has announced “Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream,” a program whose mission is to partner with low and moderate income micro-entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry and provide the tools they need to help them grow and succeed. In creating this program, Boston Beer formed a partnership with ACCION USA, the country’s leading not-for-profit micro-lending organization that provides critical capital and other types of assistance to small businesses. Boston Beer and ACCION chose to pilot the program in New England.
One pillar of the program is Boston Beer’s initial $250,000 commitment to establish the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Micro-Loan Fund at ACCION USA. This fund will provide much needed capital that is often out of reach to lower and moderate income micro-entrepreneurs whose businesses would not be approved for a bank loan.
Rather than limiting its involvement to simple financial support, The Boston Beer Company will support its beneficiaries in a variety of other ways:
— Develop and execute a series of business education and financial literacy seminars specifically designed to meet the educational needs of food and beverage entrepreneurs
— Give micro-entrepreneurs access to the advice and expertise of Samuel Adams employees through regular events
— And providing access to networks, markets and mentors that they would otherwise not be able to access
