Mastercard Strive | USA
Connecting small businesses to the support they need to thrive
Our Focus
The Mastercard Strive USA program, funded by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and implemented by DAI, is designed to provide small businesses with the support they need to achieve sustainable growth and financial resilience.
Our Approach
We help small businesses to overcome three common roadblocks:
Get capital
By funding community financial institutions including local banks, minority depository institutions, and credit unions, we make it easier for businesses to get the funding they need, when and where they need it.
Go digital
We connect small businesses with mission-driven technology partners and essential digital tools that eliminate bottlenecks and enable access to lending and investment.
Grow networks and know-how
Through local and national partnerships, we connect small businesses with expert organizations to develop new skills and grow their capabilities.
Our Goal
Supporting over 5 million small businesses in the U.S. over five years
By the Numbers
1.8M
small businesses reached
33
Partners
50
U.S. states
46B
CAPITAL DEPLOYED BY NGO PARTNERS
Our Programs
Momentus Capital: Using data, design, and capital to close the gap for small businesses
Momentus Capital is a family of organizations focused on transforming how capital and investments flow into communities, with a goal of providing access to opportunities for local leaders and entrepreneurs.
United States
Right to Start: Advancing entrepreneurship as a civic priority across the United States
Right to Start is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to expand entrepreneurial opportunity for all, driving civic change through grassroots organizing, policy engagement, and lifting the voices of entrepreneurs through storytelling.
United States
Dream Incubator: Expanding opportunity for entrepreneurs in Washington, DC
The Dream Incubator is a nonprofit that offers affordable commercial space and vital resources to small business owners in the Washington, DC area. The organization also provides innovative capacity building to the businesses it supports free of charge.
United States
Appalachian Community Capital: Building financial resilience where it’s needed most
Appalachian Community Capital is a non-profit Community Development Financial Institution that is focused on attracting new sources of capital for small businesses in underserved places in Appalachia and similar energy communities nationally.
United States
Accessity: Expanding access to credit for low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs
Accessity is a Community Development Financial Institution focused on providing economic opportunity to entrepreneurs in Southern California, particularly those who have limited access to traditional financial services.
United States
California FarmLink: Powering conservation through digital solutions for small farmers
California FarmLink is an agricultural Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that invests in the prosperity and well-being of farmers, ranchers, and fishers who have limited access to financial resources.
United States
Hyphen: Advancing access to capital access through a national public-private partnership
Hyphen catalyzes multi-sector partnerships, leverages philanthropic leadership and resources, and deploys strategic communications to address urgent needs facing entrepreneurs across the United States.
United States
Shamina Singh
Founder & President, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
“Small businesses need opportunities and resources to grow their business. That’s why we’re connecting business owners to capital, technology and information to help small businesses and their communities thrive.”
News & Updates
Featured Article
Built for all, built to last: Six shifts that could change the U.S. small business landscape for generations of entrepreneurs
Major gaps exist in the ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs in the U.S. on their journey from business inception to growth. We surveyed more than 30 small business leaders to uncover the most critical gaps holding entrepreneurs back and identified six key shifts needed to realize a vision where more entrepreneurs succeed over the long term — informing a strategy to create a stronger, more connected small business sector that expands access to capital, tools, and know-how, and leads to ongoing success for small businesses across the United States.
Funding creativity, fueling small business growth: Bridging the capital gap in the creative economy
Mastercard Strive USA recently convened a roundtable discussion on how to better support creative entrepreneurs, a small business segment that provides enormous value to local communities but faces unique and often steeper challenges compared to other types of small businesses.
Improving small business outcomes through mental health: A profile on Our Village United’s holistic…
Our Village United's ELEVATE program was one of the first incubators in the United States to focus on wellness support for entrepreneurs. It quickly became a model by developing classes led by experts on how entrepreneurs could face emotional challenges, like burnout and imposter syndrome.
From theory to practice to scale: Mastercard Strive USA’s impact on small businesses in year 2
Two years after launch, Mastercard Strive USA is working with 34 small business-focused organizations and building a program that is already more than a sum of parts. As of September 2024, the program had unlocked over $44 billion in capital, reached nearly one million small businesses, and engaged more than 682 small business intermediaries.
Embracing an abundance mindset in Kansas: How new collaborations are creating a stronger small…
The fifth Mastercard Strive USA Summit recently took place in Lawrence, Kansas in partnership with the Kansas Department of Commerce. The focus was on driving new small business-focused partnerships within Kansas as well as applying lessons learned from other regions to those collaborations.
Challenging assumptions: How a distinct operations model sets CDFIs apart in a vast financial…
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) are mission-first financial institutions that have seen rapid growth in assets in the past five years, partly because CDFI investors are challenging a set of assumptions about how CDFIs operate that could have otherwise held back their success.
Getting impact capital off the sidelines: how CNote aligns investor interests with community…
A two-year Mastercard Strive USA grant has paved the way for investment platform CNote to strengthen their organizational capacity, enabling them to scale operations, enhance their technology, and better serve the communities and institutions at the heart of their mission.
The unique partnership at the center of California’s new loan match program
A unique and first-time partnership between two mission-driven organizations, Next Street and Community Reinvestment Fund USA, is behind a new small business lending program in California that aims to connect small businesses with historic federal funding designed to help them grow and strengthen their financial resilience.
How local government can help more small businesses succeed: A fireside chat between St.
This conversation on the role of local government in helping small businesses succeed took place at the Mastercard Strive USA Summit in St. Louis, Missouri, between Tishaura O. Jones, mayor of St. Louis, and Salah Goss, senior vice president for social impact at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.
Inclusive growth for entrepreneurs in North Carolina — and beyond
Entrepreneurship is booming in North Carolina by many measures, but not all small businesses have equal access to opportunity. This article highlights key themes and moments from the fourth Mastercard Strive USA Summit held in Raleigh, North Carolina, where conversations centered on how to ensure that all entrepreneurs — in North Carolina and nationally — have access to the resources they need to succeed.
Behind the headlines: The critical role of credit unions in deploying $27 billion in federal…
Inclusiv’s experience building trust in Puerto Rico, as well as its 50-year history working with Community Development Credit Unions (CDCUs) throughout the continental U.S., will likely serve as a critical backdrop as it moves forward with its recent $1.87 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Clean Communities Investment Accelerator grant.
Opening doors and connecting dots: How the small business ecosystem in Missouri is meeting…
How can organizations that support small businesses take advantage of historic federal investments and new technologies in an increasingly diverse landscape? This was the major theme of the third Mastercard Strive USA Summit, which brought together national and local leaders from government, philanthropy, the private sector, and others in St. Louis, Missouri.
Meeting small businesses where they are: Technical assistance models that work in an increasingly…
There is an increasingly diverse range of technical assistance models, making it challenging to provide the right information to the right entrepreneur at the right time. This article highlights where leading technical assistance providers are focusing to help more entrepreneurs succeed.
How trust scales impact: The role of local partners in federal programs for small businesses
Building trust with local communities is hard. The key to driving inclusive growth starts with recognizing and valuing the trust local organizations have established with communities, and then building on that foundation to help them succeed and grow. This was the cross-cutting theme of the second Strive USA Summit in Washington, DC.
Public-private partnerships and small businesses: A conversation on what is working in New York…
This conversation between Kevin D. Kim, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services, and Shamina Singh, Founder & President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, took place at the Mastercard Strive USA Summit in New York.
How a wave of government programs are strengthening the U.S. entrepreneurial ecosystem
Unprecedented federal funding is flowing into the small business sector. By complementing these investments with the right technology and infrastructure, there is a historic opportunity to greatly improve and secure the success of more small businesses, a key cornerstone of the U.S. economy.
Building bridges for small businesses: Highlights from the first Strive USA Summit
Participants at the first Mastercard Strive USA Summit spoke about how to access and leverage the once-in-a-generation investments being made by the federal government — from building new infrastructure, to accelerating the clean energy transition, to investing directly in small businesses.
Strive USA launches event series focused on local small business ecosystems
Strive USA has launched a new event series geared towards creating more profound local impact in states and cities across the country. These convenings will complement and strengthen our work nationally by cultivating collaboration among local and national providers of capital, know-how, and digital tools.
How partnerships, policy, and platforms are driving the growth of the community finance sector
New technologies, a surge in federal funding, and strategic partnerships are driving rapid growth of the community development finance sector and bolstering resilience at a time of record small business creation — but there’s still a pressing need for further action to fully realize this critical moment.
Strive USA’s inaugural year: Billions deployed, tens of thousands of small businesses supported…
One year after the launch of Strive USA, Mastercard’s U.S. small business initiative is now supporting small businesses in 43 states and working closely with 16 prominent organizations. Here we provide an update on our work and progress — and where we go next.