By Aaron Allen
The Seattle Medium
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News
https://seattlemedium.com/
Bruce Brooks, President of Craft3, a nonprofit lending institution in Washington and Oregon, looks to disrupt discriminatory practices against underserved entrepreneurs.
In a world where career paths are as varied as the people who walk them, Bruce Brooks’ journey stands out. Currently President of Craft3, a nonprofit lender in Washington and Oregon, Brooks’ path speaks to the power of change and purpose. After leaving a successful law career and leadership roles in local government and elsewhere, Brooks is on a mission to make a difference in the businesses and lives of underserved and marginalized entrepreneurs.
The Dream of Being a Lawyer
Brooks’ vision at Craft3 is the result of an unexpected career shift — and a willingness to move beyond the childhood dream he had realized. Born and raised on the outskirts of Rochester, New York, Brooks decided to become an attorney at a very young age.
“I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 5 or 6-years-old,” Brooks says. There weren’t any lawyers in his family — Brooks’ father worked at Eastman Kodak, and his mother was a homemaker and educator. “I’ve never quite figured out why that popped into my head, but once it did, it stuck.”
Becoming an attorney may have seemed far-fetched because, other than iconic figures such as Thurgood Marshall, examples of lawyers were few and far between for Brooks as he grew up.
“I knew of the Thurgood Marshall story,” Brooks says. “But Marshall was more of a hero than a practical role model.”
Brooks went on to attend both Harvard University and Harvard Law School. After graduating, he pursued a career in employment law, litigating civil court cases, which enabled him to embrace and hone his abilities to mitigate, discover, and advise solutions to problems.
During his collegiate and post graduate experience, Brooks lived a somewhat solitary existence. Finding like-minded individuals that looked like him, people that could relate to being an African American on predominately white campuses, particularly in law school, was challenging. “My sense of the need for more equity and inclusion in business was a by-product of those experiences,” he says.
After more than a decade in private law practice, Brooks took a leave of absence to become Seattle’s deputy mayor under then-mayor Norm Rice from 1995-1997. After his stint in politics, Brooks assumed at first that he would return to the law firm when his term was up.
But his career path took him in a new direction. “I soon realized that I didn’t want to return to civil law practice. Being an employment law litigator didn’t have the same appeal anymore,” Brooks recalls.
That decision led Brooks on a path that included communications and government affairs consulting, leading corporate philanthropy for Microsoft, and then to the financial sector, beginning in 2003 at Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle. There, he once again found himself working with his friend and colleague Norm Rice, who at the time was serving as the Federal Home Loan Bank’s President and CEO.
After five years in the banking world, first with the Federal Home Loan Bank and then Countrywide in the Los Angeles area, Brooks returned to Seattle and the law as general counsel for a technology start-up and strategic director for a regional law firm and then at Craft3 in 2016, first serving as General Counsel.
Making Financial Equity a Reality for Small and Underserved Businesses
At Craft3, Brooks says, “We can help level the playing field for underserved communities and bring greater racial and gender equity to the financial sector.” Given the racial inequities that exist in the lending industry, the non-profit has plenty to do.
According to an analysis of U.S. Small Business Administration data by Forbes Advisor, SBA lending through its 7(a) program— the main loan offered by the SBA—“reveals the stark lack of equity and inclusivity in the lending industry.” White-owned businesses received the largest dollar share of 7(a) loans, a “staggering 42.4% of the approved loan amount,” totalling $10.9 million. Hispanic, Black or African American, and American Indian or Alaska Native business owners received the smallest share of total 7(a) loan dollars at 7.2%, 3.9% and 0.7%, respectively. Borrowers who didn’t specify their race received 25.2% of their loan amount, totalling $6.5 million. Asian American business owners received 20.6% of the loan dollars, about $5.3 million.
Brooks is committed to undoing those racial inequities by helping small businesses— minority and women-owned businesses, mom and pop stores, family-owned businesses, and aspiring entrepreneurs that are often the lifeblood of their community—get the financial help they need.
“Many of these small businesses that are in Black and Brown communities are not only the backbones of their communities, but also they are important parts of the overall regional economy,” Brooks says.
Indeed, as former President Barack Obama noted during a roundtable panel with Senator Patty Murray and then-Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, “Small businesses create two out of every three new jobs in America.” He said small businesses are “the backbone of our economy and the cornerstone of our communities, and it is important that we support them.”
As President of Craft3, Brooks says, “I do everything in my power to make sure that everyone who walks through our doors is offered the opportunity to better their circumstances. It’s part of our mission to help alleviate the barriers underserved entrepreneurs may experience.” Barriers for example, such as difficulty accessing funding, a lack of representation in the business community and financial services sector, deficits in training, and insufficient business support.
Listening to customers, addressing their barriers, and finding solutions to help make the lending process a less anxious one for business owners are at the top of his priorities list as Brooks begins each day.
“Part of the solution is being intentional about designing programs and offerings that meet borrowers where they are,” Brooks says. “We listen to what people from underserved backgrounds tell us are their barriers to borrowing.” It can be the size of the loan, its terms, or other aspects of the loan. “Whatever their lending challenge is, we try to figure out ways to overcome it,” Brooks says. Traditional lenders, for example, often require borrowers to “meet some standard that they don’t get to, or that we, the banking sector, decide they don’t reach,” he says. “That’s not the way we’re going to make a difference for Black and other underserved communities and for all businesses.”
As an African American professional, Brooks understands and is empathetic to the plight of anyone, but especially Black, Brown, and people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds that have traditionally been underserved, facing obstacles in pursuit of their dreams of owning a new business or sustaining an existing one. And he knows there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that underserved and disadvantaged communities receive an equal and inclusive opportunity to grow.
“We all have a lot of work to do—and I do not exclude Craft3 from that assessment,” Brooks says. “Addressing equity in lending and eradicating the barriers certain demographics face requires constantly reflecting on how we work, which, even with the best of intentions, may still create barriers for Black, Indigenous, and other underserved entrepreneurs.”
According to Brooks, his journey to a financial services career took a while, but now that he’s in that world, using his professional background, his experience, and his education to make a difference in peoples’ lives by helping their small businesses thrive has become his life’s work.
“For these smaller businesses that want to grow and be able to be successful for their families and their communities, Craft3 is a resource,” he says.
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