Giving Compass' Take:

• NextBillion reports on the Opportunity Fund, which has made more than 13,800 loans to small and micro business owners — many of whom are immigrant entrepreneurs.

• How can other investors unlock more capital and support this underserved market? The main takeaway here is that even small loans can make a big difference.

• Learn how. immigrants will create jobs for all of us.

Entrepreneurship is a revered pathway to success in America because it is seen as an egalitarian pursuit — open to anyone with a little moxie who is willing to work hard — that benefits the country through economic activity and valuable services. However, the truth is that the path to entrepreneurship is not always open to immigrants and other underserved entrepreneurs with little or no credit history, because they are shut out of our credit markets. Immigrants often face a Catch 22: They have no credit score because they’re new to the country, but they can’t get any kind of affordable credit to help build a credit score because they don’t have a previous credit history. When these entrepreneurs can’t get a loan to launch a business — or even buy a new piece of equipment, finance an expansion or stabilize their cash flow — an avenue to success is closed off.

It doesn’t have to be this way. And it doesn’t require vast investments of capital to make a dramatic, large-scale impact on people’s lives. Recent research by Opportunity Fund and a team of researchers at UC Berkeley’s Net Impact shows that it is possible to use small loans to build an onramp to the mainstream economy and expand the benefits of entrepreneurship to people with limited or no credit.

Read the full article about the impact os supporting underserved entrepreneurs by Gwendy Brown at NextBillion.