All of us at BCNA were honored to learn yesterday that Business Center for New Americans was included as one of ten top microfinance organizations in the US by CNN on CNN.money.com. We were particularly pleased because we were in such excellent company – with Opportunity Fund, ACCION USA, Justine Peterson, the Women’s Initiative for Self Employment, ACE, and ACCION branches in Texas, Chicago, San Diego, and New Mexico-Arizona-Colorado.

While we are immensely proud of having been recognized, we also know that the progress we’ve made and the lives that we’ve changed have been made possible through teamwork and through relationships with other amazing, dedicated organizations.

We have important strategic partnerships with New York advocacy groups such as the Street Vendor’s project, for instance, that are particularly important to our work with immigrants and refugees. We also have benefited immensely from working with the Association for Enterprise Opportunities (AEO), which has made possible many of our most innovative programs, such as the eBay Techquity Award Program, which provided hardware and software for low income entrepreneurs, and our hands-on training workshops with Hewlett Packard. Through the generosity of Debevoise and Plimpton, who provide pro-bono law services, our clients are not only getting access to excellent legal advice, they are also saving money on legal fees. And of course we wouldn’t be where we are today – one of the 10 top Microfinance companies in the US – without the support of our Board and our funders – the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the Small Business Administration (SBA), Citi Foundation, and Capital One Bank.

BCNA is growing but remains committed to providing quality services to our clients, delivered with utmost integrity. The recognition we received from CNN only increases the resolve of the BCNA staff, several of whom are former refugees themselves, to do our absolute best to help recent immigrants, refugees, and small business owners achieve economic security, equity, home ownership, and the American Dream!