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Access Business Bus Tours are an opportunity to increase access to resources and information

For the third year in a row this August, Micae Brown can be found leading a team of ��ɫ����Ƶ employees and others across Chicago to meet with the business owners she serves. 

“This is about building connections and strengthening community,” said Brown, who is a ��ɫ����Ƶ Business Access Advisor serving Chicago and Milwaukee. “It’s about our leaders hearing firsthand the challenges business owners face with securing capital, getting information, and having a strong relationship with a financial institution.”

Brown, who is focused on bridging gaps and being a conduit for business owners looking for solutions, will be holding her third annual Access Business Bus Tour in August, which also happens to be National Black Business Month. Similar tours are happening across the bank’s footprint with the Business Access Advisors hosting an inaugural business tour in Minnesota in August, one in Los Angeles in September, and an Arkansas-based Business Access Advisor joining ReMix Ideas – an organization dedicated to supporting Black-owned businesses – as a community leader on a bus tour for the third year. 

“We find over and over again that the common pitfalls for small business owners often come from lack of access – whether it’s capital or resources and information,” said Brown. “It’s part of the reason why ��ɫ����Ƶ created the Business Access Advisor role. We are striving to help business owners overcome those common challenges by connecting them with people who can help with access, whether it’s nonprofits or financial education resources.”

Over the years through the bus tour, Brown and ��ɫ����Ƶ leaders have visited dozens of business owners who shared their own unique experiences and goals. This includes Alicia Deurson, the owner of a Harold’s Chicken franchise.

“When you are starting a small business, you don’t have ‘x’ amount of dollars,” said Deurson, who worked with Brown to find solutions at ��ɫ����Ƶ and alongside community partners to help her open her restaurant in 2023. “You don’t have this or that, but ��ɫ����Ƶ was willing to work with what I had. They take interest in you and don’t judge you on what you don’t have.”

In the end, these events are aimed at creating opportunities for deeper understandings around what it means to own a business, what challenges business owners face today, and understanding what their end goals are. For Tyrone Hemingway, the owner of Kicking the Barriers, those goals stretch far beyond the walls of his youth martial arts studio.