Accion Opportunity Fund - Customer Data Platform

Entrepreneurs of color and women are taking the lead in new business creation and driving economic growth. Despite their tenacity, these entrepreneurs lack the necessary capital, social networks, and professional skills they need to build generational wealth and often face bias within traditional markets not tailored to support them. Accion Opportunity Fund (AOF) aims to reach these entrepreneurs with the skills and capital they need to thrive.  

Over 1 million business owners visit our website annually seeking out over 400 articles, educational videos, business courses, and coaching as well as to apply for a loan or a grant program. However, their experience navigating our site lacks intention, cohesion, and personalization. 

This project will allow AOF to use Machine Learning (ML) to personalize our approach, deepen engagement, and strengthen impact by developing a customer data platform that will support the unification and standardized intake of AOF’s disparate customer experiences across our 5 offerings (loans, grants, coaching, events, and accelerator programs). This will allow us to create a more cohesive experience by predicting and suggesting what content and offerings best match the needs of each small business owner, enable entrepreneurs not yet qualified for loans to become “investment ready” and deliver content at scale, on a level of customization impossible without automation. 

By providing a personalized experience based on the needs of small business owners, our solution aims to provide tailored support throughout their journey, paving the way for success and resiliency by fostering improved business and financial health outcomes.  

Through customer research, AOF has identified the needs and preferences of small business owners, aligning them with existing offerings and content. Our small business clients consistently report the need for support that corresponds to our existing services (i.e., financial education, mentoring, marketing support, etc.) especially one-on-one coaching – but because their journeys are siloed, we are unable to make a personalized and coordinated effort to support their growth.  

This reinforces the need for this project and emphasizes the importance of building the necessary technological infrastructure.  

The project’s technical design will include the following components: 

• Set up of Amazon Web Services data warehouse infrastructure leveraging S3, Lambdas, Terraform, Aurora, GitHub and possibly Atlantis 
• Centralizing data from 10+ systems capturing/generating customer data across AOF’s offerings 
• Running predictive models using machine learning to develop personalized recommendations for each small business owner that will deepen engagement and impact  

This solution will allow AOF to construct a unified data warehouse centralizing de-identified customer profiles to make it easier to identify our clients' challenges and improve business outcomes through personalized email recommendations and engagement plans to support their growth, including financial readiness plans to become investment ready. The customer data platform will apply Machine Learning (ML) to streamline and automate personalized emails for curated business advising content, eligible grants, and access to loans. Small business owners will have the capability to manage their loan, assess financial health, connect with other business owners, and access premium business resources, including assets created from coaching sessions, industry insights, and discounts/rewards on software and services through a one-stop shop.  

As AOF has grown our reach from a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) lender supporting under-resourced entrepreneurs in California, to a national CDFI reaching over 1 million entrepreneurs annually through digital education content and expanded our wraparound and customer support services, we are positioned to take an innovative approach to provide a one-stop shop for small business owners who have been historically marginalized from access to financial and social capital. A more unified customer data platform will allow us to meet our existing and prospective small business owners where they are in the entrepreneurial journey by engaging them through a personalized interactive experience to support their needs. 

AOF’s mission is to provide financial support and education to small business owners that have been historically underinvested through traditional capital markets. AOF’s target market are low-income, women, Latino/a and Black entrepreneurs. 90% of the entrepreneurs we serve are women, people or color or immigrants. Annually, we reach thousands of entrepreneurs through our services and resources, including capital (grants and small business loans), culturally responsive one-on-one coaching, digital educational resources, webinars, events, and accelerator programs.    

To understand the small business owners we support, we conduct customer research and work to design and implement innovative programs and tailored services to support their needs. We have a research panel of nearly 300 small business owners who have agreed to share their insights, as well as thousands of other engagers and customers, to run interviews, focus groups, and surveys to get ideas and feedback as we go. This customer research helps us understand how business owners define success and what non-financial resources, support, and needs they are seeking. This data combined with machine learning will allow us to build out features for our customer portal that can cross-engage our existing customers with additional services.  

Our innovative tech solution aligns with the Truist Foundation and MIT Solve Inspire Awards’ goals of aiding entrepreneurs from undercapitalized communities. AOF believes accelerating investment in entrepreneurs and communities is an effective strategy for driving financial mobility and well-being. By providing capital, coaching, and resources for small businesses and communities at scale, we can drive a more equitable financial system and create lasting economic change. 

Our solution is aligned with a) financial readiness - developing new or improved methods and tools to assist in financial preparation for loan acquisition and b) data and impact - capturing, optimizing, and displaying data for business intelligence, improved decision making for resource allocation and impact evaluation.  

This solution will make it more efficient to identify our clients ' challenges and improve business results through personalized recommendations and engagement plans to support their growth, and for entrepreneurs seeking capital, but not yet qualified, financial readiness plans to prepare for investment. 

By activating existing data and leveraging cloud technology and machine learning tools to improve resource allocation, AOF can streamline personalized engagement and make it easier for small businesses owners to access the tools they need to create better business and financial health outcomes.  

This solution will also allow AOF to accelerate our mission to serve under-invested and under-networked entrepreneurs by going beyond measuring our impact by the number of small business owners we reach annually to measuring the impact and outcomes of those offerings on small businesses, their owners and local community. 

AOF promotes an equitable financial system by advancing economic opportunity for underinvested small businesses and communities at scale. We accomplish this by providing quality financial services and resources, building cross-sector partnerships, and advocating for fair policies so all individuals can build financial well-being and improve their lives. 

With the launch of new offerings AOF has uncovered through customer research an ever-growing digital audience with low rates of cross-engagement. If AOF builds a best-in-class cohesive online experience – using machine learning to personalize its approach – and connects underserved entrepreneurs to that experience, then entrepreneurs who complete the learning journey will make stronger financial decisions to improve the health of their business, and AOF can continue to support them as their needs evolve and grow.  

Small businesses will have access to trusted partners and a dedicated platform to access business assets, resources, learn new skills, manage and/or apply for loans and programs to support their business growth. The short- and long-term outcomes of this project will help drive economic mobility and generational wealth by addressing the short and long-term needs of the small business owners we serve and helping them start, grow, or scale their operations.  

This shift towards a more personalized and data-driven approach will not only benefit individual small business owners, but also contribute to leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities for all entrepreneurs. By leveraging technology, we can bridge the gap between those who have traditionally had access to resources and those who have not.  

Annually, AOF reaches approximately 3,000 entrepreneurs with loans, 1,400 with business coaching, 5,000 through programs and webinars and over 1 million with digital education resources through our Business Resource Library (BRL), a digital hub with recorded webinars, articles, and interactive learning modules with knowledge checks, voice-overs and audio to support diverse learning styles in both Spanish and English. The BRL also provides entrepreneurs with opportunities to connect to our Coaching Hub, a platform where they can schedule a 30-minute coaching session on a range of topics from expert business coaches. 

The development of the portal will allow us to engage and convert approximately 10% (100,000) of the over 1 million entrepreneurs we serve into registered users who receive a personalized experience at no cost to them. In two years, the solution will serve up to 100,000 entrepreneurs, in five years we will serve up to 400,000.  

The customer data platform will also allow us to increase cross-engagement with existing services (engagement with more than one offering) to 6% of small business owners per year in 2 years. Currently only 3 percent of small business owners cross engage with more than one offering.  

AOF defines the community we serve as small business owners that have been historically underinvested in and under-networked.  

Our organizational strategy is designed with and for communities and entrepreneurs of color, informed by our mission focused executive leadership team, employees, board members, and the voices and needs of the small business owners we serve.  

We work in lockstep with partners across the private and public sectors so that all small business owners can thrive. We work with state and federal government, policy makers, small business advocates, and mission focused organizations to advocate for a transparent and inclusive financial system, launch innovative programs, evaluate, and improve existing products, and phase out other ones. 

AOF builds trust with the communities we serve by listening to entrepreneurs and tailoring our services to meet their needs. We utilize primary research including surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather ideas and feedback on human design solutions and to evaluate the impact of our services.   

We work with a wide range of mission-based organizations and engage with entrepreneurs of color and influencers to build trust in the communities we serve and share unique client journeys while driving awareness to resources they need.  

Our culturally responsive one-on-one coaching is another major avenue for engagement and trust building. Through in-house, regional based coaches with diverse industry experience, we support entrepreneurs with flexible and free coaching. The coaches also work to engage with entrepreneurs in their region and have direct experience as small business owners themselves. More than half of our coaches are people of color and over 80% are women. 

AOF rolled out a new 3-year strategic plan in June 2021, with an annual update in June 2022. The strategic priorities for our FY23-25 plan are to provide systemically disadvantaged business owners with opportunities for financial health and economic mobility, advocate for policies that make the lending ecosystem fair and inclusive and ensure disadvantaged communities have access to necessary human services.  AOF’s impact goals for the current fiscal year (FY24) include: 

• Dispersing $95 million in capital through 2,600 loans to support small businesses, primarily Black, Latinx, low-income, and women-owned businesses across the US 
• Reaching over 1 million people with self-serve digital education resources, including courses and modules on small business focused topics.  
• Reaching 2,000 individuals with one-on-one coaching opportunities through in-house capacity and trusted partners.  

Like the small business owners we serve, we know that technological improvements to our processes and services are critical for our success. With support from this challenge, we can continue to invest in our innovative solution to provide tailored and personalized support to meet their needs. 

Over 5 years ago we launched an innovation partnership with Lending Club, acquiring their small business lending portfolio and infrastructure for cloud lending, this partnership paved the way for the 2020 merger between Accion U.S. Network and Opportunity Fund that formed AOF. Days before the pandemic, the two organizations joined forces under a shared vision to build the first of its kind national financial institution to support underserved entrepreneurs across the country. Through investments in technology infrastructure, innovative partnerships and developing in-house business educational resources, and customer care we pivoted and continue to develop our capacity to scale from being a fully boots on the ground organization, to offering support that is not limited to business owners zip code – strengthening our capacity to reach more underserved small business owners.  

A partnership with the Truist Foundation and MIT Solve will allow AOF to unlock the capabilities to make our multi-dimensional approach viable at scale and gain insights into how AOF offerings can be improved and combined to have a deeper impact on small business owners.

AOF has assessed our technology and created a comprehensive product roadmap. We have many of the pieces needed to implement this technology strategy, and because of the ever-expanding nature of our technological advances, we see this opportunity as a catalyst that will provide focus, expertise, and financial resources. We have a dedicated team of data engineers and analysts who can architect the necessary systems and integrations. In some cases, our integration is done through third-party support resources, and we would welcome support from MIT Solve and Truist Foundation that will support our continuous improvement process.