Charter Communications and the National Action Network said Monday that the Spectrum Community Investment Loan Fund has agreed to make a low-interest loan to Carver Bancorp, Inc. for $1.5 million to help minority and women-owned businesses.

Carver Bancorp is the holding company for Carver Federal Savings Bank, the largest publicly traded African and Caribbean-American managed bank in the United States. The investment represents the first stage of Charter’s previously announced commitment to invest $3 million directly in Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) such as Carver, in partnership with NAN. In addition, Charter said it is making a $1 million long-term deposit in Carver as part of its pledge to support Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs). The $1.5 million in additional liquidity and the $1 million long-term deposit will enable Carver to increase its low-interest loan production to Minority- and Women-Owned Business Entrepreneurs (MWBEs).

“NAN’s partnership with Charter Communications to invest significant dollars in the Black community couldn’t come at a better time and will help ease the economic hits Black businesses have taken in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said NAN founder and president, Reverend Al Sharpton in a press release. “I’m especially proud to launch this on the day we honor Dr. King because his fight for racial equality included pushing for an economy that fostered financial growth and empowerment for Black people. This investment and the vital low-interest small-business loans it will fund will continue NAN’s work to achieve economic equality and support Black businesses and Black entrepreneurs.”

The Spectrum Community Loan Fund was formed in February 2020 to help businesses in financially underserved communities within its 41-state footprint. So far it has invested about $16 million in low-interest loans across the country. 

“Charter is an important part of the communities we serve and we are invested in their success across our footprint,” chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said in a press release. “These investments in Carver, our continued partnership with Reverend Sharpton and NAN, and the $16 million being invested by the Spectrum Community Investment Loan Fund across the country, are making low-interest loans available to help strengthen diverse-owned small businesses and provide a lasting economic impact vital to the continued development and growth of these financially underserved communities.”

In addition to the $3 million being invested in CDFIs in partnership with NAN, the Loan Fund has previously announced $1 million CDFI investments in Pursuit Community Finance in New York, PeopleFund in Texas, the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI) in Ohio, Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp (WWBIC), the National Asian American Coalition in California,  and Justine PETERSEN in Missouri, and committed $3 million to the National Urban Leagues’ Urban Empowerment Fund (UEF). Charter also provides each CDFI with a grant to fund technical assistance programs and professional training for small businesses to help establish sound business practices necessary for long-term growth.

“We are very pleased to establish a partnership with National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Charter Communications to support our mutual goal of economic recovery and growth with minority-led small businesses,” Carver Bancorp president and CEO Michael T. Pugh said in a press release.“ A $1.5 million cash commitment through a below-market-rate loan to our holding company and a $1 million long-term deposit at the Bank affords Carver the opportunity to continue supporting Minority and Women-Owned Businesses Entrepreneurs at a time when many businesses have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. On behalf of Carver and the communities we serve, I want to thank the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Charter Communications for this investment in MWBEs.”

Charter Communications said it will invest $10 million in a partnership with the National Urban League and the National Action Network to support Black and minority-owned businesses in underserved communities.

Charter’s Spectrum Community Investment Fund will invest $3 million in the National Urban League’s Urban Empowerment Fund, which will make individual loans to minority-owned small businesses. In addition, Charter will invest another $3 million in low-interest loans directly to community development investment funds (CDFIs), under the direction of the National Action Network.

Charter also will provide $3.5 million in PSA value to promote its partners’ Spectrum Community Investment Fund opportunities, and will contribute a $500,000 capacity grant to the National Urban League for revitalizing its CDFI platform including funding for staffing, infrastructure, and operations.

“In all communities, small business ownership and growth are fundamental to developing and sustaining economic power, which is critical to their long-term success,” Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge said in a press release. “Building on our valued partnerships with the National Urban League and National Action Network, these investments will support small diverse-owned businesses through access to much-needed low-interest capital and help build thriving communities across the country.”

As the Urban League’s small business lending subsidiary, the Urban Empowerment Fund provides loans and coaching to minority-owned businesses that provide jobs and revenue to economically distressed areas and other underserved communities.

"Small Black-owned businesses, a primary economic driver in Black neighborhoods, are less likely to be approved for loans than their White-owned counterparts, and when they are approved, they receive smaller amounts and at higher interest rates,” said National Urban League CEO Marc H. Morial in a press release. “As we face the most daunting economic landscape since the Great Depression, committed and enlightened partners like Charter are more valued than ever before. Charter is helping the National Urban League build stronger and more stable communities that create opportunity for prosperity."

Charter launched the Loan Fund in February, committing to invest an initial $10 million in capital by the end of 2021 by making low-interest loans through CDFIs to small businesses whose goods and services help meet core needs in underserved communities within Charter’s 41-state operating footprint. With the addition of the investment partnerships with the Urban League and NAN, Charter’s Loan Fund commitment has increased to $13 million, and the Urban Empowerment Fund investment represents the fourth made by the Loan Fund in the past four months. Charter previously announced $1 million investments in Pursuit Community Finance in New York, PeopleFund in Texas, and the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI) in Ohio. Over the next year, the Loan Fund expects to invest an additional $4 million across CDFIs in California, Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin, in addition to the $3 million into CDFIs as directed by NAN.

In addition to the loans, each CDFI receives a grant to fund technical assistance programs and professional training for small businesses. These grants have recently been made to provide support to businesses impacted by COVID-19.

“In order to achieve the economic equality we want to see, we need to support our Black businesses and our Black entrepreneurs,” said NAN founder Reverend Al Sharpton in a press release. “For too long, our talented Black communities have been deprived of low interest loans, capital and a myriad of resources to help Black businesses thrive and prosper, a reality that has lasted decades inhibiting us from playing and competing in a level playing field. This partnership is one more step to address the systemic scarcity in our communities and to underscore much needed investment to turn the tide of inequity.”

News of the investment comes on the same day that Comcast settled a $20 billion lawsuit brought by Entertainment Studios chairman and CEO Byron Allen and the National Association of African American Owned Media in 2015, claiming Comcast conspired to keep African American owned networks off its systems. Allen has a similar active $10 billion suit against Charter, filed in 2016, that claims carriage discrimination.   

Washington — Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler stopped short of saying he would press the pause button on his proposal to “unlock” cable set-top boxes, but he has signaled he would work with members of the committee on their issues with the proposal.

And they did have issues.

The key to that exchange — which took place at an FCC oversight hearing on Capitol Hill — was that it was with a Democratic legislator who was asking for the delay, and that lawmaker wasn’t alone.

Last week, the National Urban League joined the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and others in calling on the FCC to delay any action on the set-top proposal until it had studied the impact of the proposal on diverse programmers.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said at the hearing that she has asked the Congressional Research Service to conduct such a study, and asked Wheeler if he would be willing to hold off until the study was completed.

Wheeler did not commit to a delay, saying only that he would “look forward to working with [Clarke] and the committee” on any issues raised. He did not say he would delay the proceeding, and he said he did not know how long a delay was contemplated.

As expected, committee Republicans hammered Wheeler over the proposal, saying it threatened copyright protections and privacy and was unnecessary and rooted in old technology and thinking. That pushback has now become bipartisan.

Also at the hearing, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) went so far as to suggest that he joined some stakeholders in concerns that the proposal could mean a new form of digital redlining.

Butterfield said he was concerned about the potential for the “myriad unintended consequences” of the proposal, including the ability to enforce copyright protections for content creators and distributors.

Wheeler continued to assert last week that the proposal doesn’t threaten copyright holders. In providing an example, though, he also provided fodder for cable ISPs and other opponents.

In talking about his proposal and how it would not allow those third parties to ride roughshod over copyright protections, Wheeler said there are “today the equivalent of competitive set-top boxes available in the market,” citing Google’s Chromecast device. Wheeler said that Chromecast does not violate copyright, does not “overlay commercials” and is not out to take over cable TV, calling that notion “malarkey.”

The Future of TV Coalition, which includes cable ISPs and others opposing the set-top proposal, was quick to pick up that comment and run with it, saying it showed there are already alternatives in the market and that makes the set-top proposal unnecessary.

“If the classic Washington definition of a ‘gaffe’ is to accidentally tell the truth, Chairman Wheeler’s comments at today’s hearing are a whopper,” the coalition said in a statement. “He admitted, plainly and clearly, that apppowered devices like Chromecast and Roku offer consumers an alternative to traditional set-top boxes and are readily available in the marketplace. Which begs the question — why is the chairman so desperate to solve a problem that he admits does not exist?

“Chairman Wheeler correctly points out that apps-driven innovation is already allowing consumers to watch video on a wide range of devices — without hurting small and independent programmers, invading privacy, or undermining copyright protections. Why, then, is he proposing a sweeping mandate that explicitly rejects this apps approach and strips TV providers of the technical and contractual tools they currently use to ensure these protections remain in place?”

In response, FCC press secretary Kim Hart told Multichannel News: “What the coalition fails to acknowledge is that 99% of pay TV consumers rent a box from their pay TV provider, paying $231 a year on average. The marketplace is not providing consumers with choice.

“While Roku and Chromecast may provide ‘equivalent’ functions to a set-top box, today these devices and consumers that use them remain bound by the whims of the pay TV industry,” Hart added. “Pay TV providers choose which device to make an app for and independent app providers cannot develop an app to display this video programming. For instance, no MVPD provides an app to Chromecast.”