Promoting Financial Inclusion & Economic Empowerment

In June 2016, GSEI founder W. Michael Short was invited to the Clinton Global Initiative Summit in Atlanta, GA, to announce SourceFunding.org as a 2016 Clinton Foundation sponsored "Commitment to Action."

Recognized for "FinTech Innovation" in the Business & Management Review and at the Obama White House for economic impact, SourceFunding.org is tech-enabled social impact venture focused on bridging the opportunity divide & leveling the playing field for the 28 million small businesses in the United States so they can expand, create jobs, & transform communities.

Of the 8,000 small businesses denied financing each day, over 30% are credit-worthy and would've been approved if they had connected with the right funder

SourceFunding.org is the nation's first low-cost matchmaking platform connecting small businesses with the 20,000+ responsible community banks, credit unions, CDFIs, & economic development financing opportunities in the U.S.

SourceFunding.org merges unparalleled access to the nation's financing opportunities with the nation's first common application for small business funding. The proprietary system improves loan application outcomes, reduces friction for businesses seeking financing, protects the credit scores of small business applicants, and provides the nation's first viable alternative to the many predatory online lenders.

SourceFunding.org is scaling up the successful regional pilot by GSEI and award winning consultancy Short Enterprises, which facilitated access to $10 million in capital for high impact ventures and initiatives in a community with the highest levels of poverty concentration in the country. 

The platform's national launch was planned in collaboration with university partners in the Ashoka U Accelerator and with the support of founding investor Janet Davas, mentor with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and founder of Hatch, LLC & nationally recognized Liberty's Kitchen.

"We're especially thankful for the support of the brilliant team at the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation like David Wilkinson and fellow Syracuse University graduate Laura Tomasko," said W. Michael Short. "We're also very thankful for the incredibly inspiring team at Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation like Dan Goldberg, Stacey Pellegrino, Geoffrey Wnuk, Rose Tobiassen, Shital Patel, Ruchi Bhargava, Kimberly Lovett, and many others."

"The national expansion announcement was also made possible by our involvement in the Ashoka U Accelerator, which helped us refine our model and formulate our CGI Commitment to include a significant focus on empowering the next generation of high impact entrepreneurs that are often burdened by college debt and unable to access the funding needed to launch and grow their ventures," said W. Michael Short. "The Ashoka U Accelerator is a world-class program because of people like Hattie Duplechain, Scott Fairbanks, and our coach Heather Neuwirth from Middlebury College, which Forbes named #2 on its list of America’s Most Entrepreneurial Colleges."