The Southern Opportunity and Resilience Fund (SOAR) has announced that it has awarded an initial $11 million in flexible, low-interest loans in support of COVID-19 recovery efforts across the South.

Launched earlier this year to provide affordable capital and free advisory support to entrepreneurs in underbanked communities, the fund has raised $62.5 million in philanthropic, private, and corporate funding, including from the Visa, Compton, and W.K. Kellogg foundations. Made through twelve community development financial institutions (CDFIs), the loans will support small businesses and nonprofits with fifty or fewer employees in fourteen states and Washington, D.C.

Initial catalytic grants and support came from, among others, Capital One, Ceniarth, JPMorgan Chase, Mercy Investment Services, Microsoft, Winrock International, and Woodforest National Bank, as well as Fidelity Charitable, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the David and Lucile Packard, F.B. Heron, Grove, and Heifer foundations.

“We are thrilled that the SOAR loan program is achieving its intended impact to boost small business recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 and that we are reaching the business owners the program intended to help,” said James H. Bason, president and CEO of TruFund Financial Services, one of the participating CDFIs. “SOAR is designed for the smallest of small businesses and those that have been historically underbanked, including those in rural and low-income areas and those owned by women, people of color, and immigrants. These businesses often struggle to access credit from traditional sources but are critical to providing jobs and supporting economic recovery in communities across the South. That’s why we will continue to work hard to get money into the hands of these small business owners.”

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