Providing support to small business owners
The Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream program serves as Accion’s flagship food and beverage partnership in the United States, bringing together our mission-based organization with the entrepreneurially-minded brewer Samuel Adams.
Small business owners are champions of job growth in our neighborhoods, but they’re often turned away by traditional banks and not provided the know-how to succeed. Jim Koch started Samuel Adams in his kitchen in 1984, and after 34 years of brewing success, he never forgot how difficult it was to start and run a successful small business. Jim created Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream in 2008 to provide support to business owners in two areas he wishes he had help with when launching Samuel Adams: real-world business advice and a loan.
Over a decade ago, Samuel Adams reached out to Accion’s Cambridge office about forming a partnership where Accion would provide the loans and Samuel Adams would tap into its employees’ more than 25 years of expertise in the food and beverage industry to provide mentoring to small business owners. Through the partnership, 8,000 small businesses have been coached and mentored. The program has also supported Accion in providing nearly 2,000 loans totaling over $25 million to food and beverage businesses that are creating or retaining approximately 7,000 jobs.