FACE Coalition is taking its Micro-Loan Program national, partnering with the Business Development Bank of Canada to widen access to capital for Black entrepreneurs coast to coast. Building on a successful Ontario and British Columbia pilot with Alterna Savings and Vancity, the program now offers loans ranging from $10,000 to $250,000. The move reflects FACE's push to close persistent financing gaps for Black-owned businesses nationwide.
The Federation of African Canadian Economics (FACE) has spent five years chipping away at one of the most stubborn barriers facing Black business owners in this country, the simple fact of getting a loan. That work took a significant step forward this week. FACE announced the national expansion of its Micro-Loan Program, moving a financing tool that once served two provinces into a coast-to-coast resource for Black entrepreneurs, and doing so in partnership with the Business Development Bank of Canada.
For a community that has long been underserved by conventional lenders, the shift from regional pilot to national platform marks a meaningful widening of who gets to access capital, and where.
From regional pilot to national reach
The Micro-Loan Program launched in May 2021 as a piece of the broader Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund. Delivered through partnerships with Alterna Savings and Credit Union and Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, it provided loans of $10,000 to $25,000 to early- and growth-stage Black-owned businesses in Ontario and British Columbia. The pilot ran until March 2025, and FACE says it generated strong demand and clear results within the regions it served.
That track record is now the foundation for something bigger. With support from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and continued collaboration with BDC, the program has expanded to all provinces and territories. Entrepreneurs who previously fell outside its geographic reach, in the Maritimes, the Prairies, and across the North, can now apply through the same national channel already serving Ontario and BC.
"Access to capital remains one of the most significant barriers facing Black entrepreneurs in Canada. The expansion of our Micro-Loan Program nationally represents a critical step toward closing that gap and ensuring Black-owned businesses, regardless of location, can access the financing they need to start, grow, and scale," said Tiffany Callender, CEO and Co-Founder, FACE Coalition. "Through our collaboration with BDC and continued support from the Government of Canada, we are building a more inclusive and equitable economic landscape."
What has changed in the loan structure
Alongside its geographic expansion, FACE has widened its loan range. Where the pilot topped out at $25,000, the national program now offers financing between $10,000 and $250,000, a shift meant to serve entrepreneurs at very different stages of growth under one umbrella.
The broader range gives FACE more flexibility to meet business owners where they are. A few scenarios the program is designed to support include the following.
- Early-stage founders who need initial capital to get a concept off the ground
- Entrepreneurs who have been turned away or underserved by traditional banks and credit unions
- Established businesses looking for growth financing at a manageable, right-sized amount
That range matters. A hair salon looking to renovate a second location has very different capital needs than a food entrepreneur scaling into new markets, and a single loan ceiling rarely serves both well.
Voices behind the expansion
Federal officials framed the announcement as part of a wider push to support Black economic participation. The Honourable Rechie Valdez, Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State for Small Business and Tourism, called the national rollout good news for entrepreneurs across the country, noting that Black business owners are creating jobs, strengthening communities and contributing to the broader Canadian economy.
FACE Coalition CEO and co-founder Tiffany Callender was direct about what the expansion is meant to fix. Access to capital, she said, remains one of the most significant barriers facing Black entrepreneurs in Canada, and closing that gap regardless of location has been the goal driving this rollout. Her comments point to a throughline in FACE's work since its founding, that geography should not determine whether a qualified entrepreneur gets funded.
FACE's broader mission
FACE administers the Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, a $160 million initiative backed by the Government of Canada and BDC. Since its creation in 2021, the coalition has approved more than $67 million in loans and disbursed over $50 million to nearly 600 Black-owned businesses nationwide. The Micro-Loan Program's national expansion builds directly on that infrastructure, extending both the coalition's lending capacity and its network of partnerships with financial institutions and federal agencies.
BDC's involvement reflects its own mandate as a development bank focused on underserved markets and entrepreneurs who fall outside traditional lending models. The bank describes its role as helping unlock economic potential in communities that conventional financial institutions have historically overlooked, a mission that aligns closely with what FACE has been building since day one.
The bigger picture for Black entrepreneurship in Canada
What FACE has built over five years is less a single loan program than a growing ecosystem, one in which microfinance, mentorship, and federal partnerships work together to move Black entrepreneurship from the margins of Canada's economy toward its centre. The national expansion of the Micro-Loan Program is a concrete marker of that progress, turning a two-province pilot into infrastructure available to any Black business owner in the country, from a first-time founder in Halifax to a scaling operation in Vancouver.
For Toronto's Black business community specifically, the expansion reinforces what's already in motion locally through FACE's Ontario presence, but it also signals a shift in scale that benefits the wider diaspora network, the entrepreneurs rely on for referrals, partnerships, and shared knowledge.
As FACE continues to grow its lending capacity alongside BDC and other federal partners, the program stands as one of the more tangible examples of what sustained, coalition-driven advocacy can produce, not a one-time grant or symbolic gesture, but a financing structure built to outlast a single funding cycle and serve entrepreneurs for years to come.
