Bridging Small Business Support & Employment Law Compliance: A Toolkit for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)

About This Toolkit

This toolkit provides practical insights that community development financial institutions (CDFIs) can use to expand their impact and support small business job quality and growth.

It combines innovative insights from community organizing, academic research, and a new pilot program to identify strategies and potential interventions for CDFIs that work with small businesses to support them with employment law compliance. CDFIs seeking to strengthen their support for small business owners on employment law compliance will find that the toolkit builds on deep research of the key sectors and networks in which small businesses operate, with the goal to identify moments and interventions that can set up businesses towards success.



Authors

Cynthia Ward

Small Business Labor Standards Pilot Coordinator and Senior Strategist, Workplace Justice Lab

Hana Shepherd

Associate Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University; Senior Affiliated Researcher, Workplace Justice Lab.

Andrew Wolf

Assistant Professor of Industrial Relations, Cornell University; Affiliated Researcher, Workplace Justice Lab

Zuhur Ahmed

Research Associate, Workplace Justice Lab


Contributors

For further information, or to learn more about our work connecting compliance, job quality, and small business success, please contact the team leads for this project:

Bryn Morgan

Senior Research Associate

Leila Brown

Senior Project Manager

About Shared Success

Shared Success, a project of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, shows how building better jobs can simultaneously uplift workers while also driving small business success.

About the Economic Opportunities Program

The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy.

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