New Small Business Loan Fund puts Racial Equity Front and Center

Grand Rapids, Mich., was once ranked as one of the top 50 creative class cities in the U.S. but that hasn’t solved its racial disparities. A recent study placed Grand Rapids ahead of only Milwaukee on a list of 52 cities where African-Americans are struggling economically. Richard Flowers wants to do something about that by starting and growing his own business. He launched Reliable Medical Transport in 2015. Family members in the Chicago area ran a similar business, so he brought the model of door-to-door, wheelchair accessible transportation services to the Grand Rapids area. “I got tired of making other people money, and wanted to do something for myself,” Flowers says.But, after a divorce and losing a job, Flowers didn’t have good credit. All he had was vision:“I just took a lined piece of paper, made it into a tri-fold piece of paper, and I wrote out what I wanted this company to be like,” Flowers says. “I took that paper to a couple of friends of mine and let them see what I was looking at doing, and all three of them said ‘Hey, we want in on that.’”