29 October 2021
Mt. Airy CDC is pleased to announce that it has received a grant that will expand its PhillyiHub training program. With $500,000 in new funding from the Wells Fargo Open for Business initiative, MACDC has partnered with Fairmount CDC to introduce PhillyiHub North, set to launch in early 2022.
“We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to build on the success of the last five years,” said Sharon Kim, Mt. Airy CDC’s Interim Executive Director. “PhillyiHub is a critical step in the journey of entrepreneurship and business ownership, and this funding will allow us to make it available to even more people.”
“At Wells Fargo, we’re proud of our long-time association with Mt. Airy CDC. Our Open for Business Fund is another avenue of support for organizations like Mt. Airy CDC that enlists the expertise of our CDFI partners to urgently help diverse Philadelphia entrepreneurs recover and preserve the jobs they provide in their communities,” said Stephen Briggs, vice president of Social Impact and Sustainability. “By providing this funding to Mt. Airy CDC, we’ll help them increase the reach of PhillyiHub, to help with technical assistance for local businesses who are the backbone of our local economies and neighborhoods.”
Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund is a roughly $420 million small business recovery effort created to help entrepreneurs stay open, maintain jobs and grow. Through this initiative, Wells Fargo is deploying grants to nonprofits and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to provide small business owners with greater access to capital, technical expertise and recovery resources, with an emphasis on supporting small businesses most disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
PhillyiHub meets these conditions as a business and entrepreneurship training program that Mt. Airy CDC has kept free to participants, an important consideration for folks whose journey is only beginning.
“We are proud to not only have served our community in a positive and progressive way, but also to have been able to provide the assistance and resources we offer for free,” said Aaron Crump, coordinator of the program. “We are extremely grateful to Wells Fargo for choosing Mt. Airy CDC and allowing us to continue providing our services while expanding into other neighborhoods.”
Introducing… PhillyiHub North
PhillyiHub’s expansion from Mt. Airy to the rest of Philadelphia will begin in the Art Museum District. Fairmount CDC, with a soon-to-open office and space for the program where those communities come together on West Girard Avenue, is positioned to make an impact right away with PhillyiHub North.
“The success of PhillyiHub and Mt. Airy CDC helping neighbors develop and grow business ideas is inspirational,” said Patrick Sherlock, Executive Director of Fairmount CDC. “We know the ambition that lives in every Philadelphia neighborhood, and we cannot wait to include more communities in the PhillyiHub program by partnering with residents in Fairmount, Brewerytown, Sharswood, Francisville, Spring Garden, West Philadelphia and beyond.”
Since 2016, PhillyiHub has graduated 189 students through 15 cohorts — all of them virtually since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. Since 2018, the program’s instruction has gone through David Simons, founder and CEO of Kingdom Social Media, in partnership with Aaron Crump and Mt. Airy CDC. The goal for both Mt. Airy and Fairmount is to bring the program back to in-person as soon as safely possible.
For more information on the Wells Fargo Open for Business initiative, click HERE.
To apply to the PhillyiHub program, go HERE.
