ROC Cohort
The ROC Cohort is a cross-sector collaboration of organizations, businesses, and community partners.
VISION
The vision of the ROC cohort is that Lancaster County is a nurturing environment for BIPOC-owned small businesses to thrive.
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
Our priorities are to strengthen trust among resource providers and BIPOC-owned small businesses, build equitable access to capital, and to strengthen community for BIPOC-owned small businesses. By giving through the ROC Giving Circle, you are also a part of this initiative!
ROC Giving Circle
The Reimagining Our Community (ROC) Giving Circle is a way for the community to support BIPOC small business through collective philanthropy. The Giving Circle is managed by the ROC Cohort. Its purpose is to facilitate funding to initiatives that support BIPOC-owned small businesses. Money will be awarded to existing 501c3 non-profit organizations that have or wish to develop programming, services, or products to support the development and sustainability of BIPOC-owned small businesses in Lancaster County. The goal is that these funds will bridge gaps within existing resources to ensure that services are equitable in access, participation, and implementation.
What is a giving circle?
Giving Circles bring a group of people with shared values together around a cause to collectively discuss and decide on where to make a pooled gift. People pool money together to make greater combined impact! Learn more about giving circles.
History of the ROC
A cross-sector collaboration of organizations, businesses, and community members in Lancaster County participated in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s second annual Reinventing Our Communities cohort program. This program used a lens of racial justice to focus on equitable business recovery, and to support business owners disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and those that have been historically and systematically oppressed.
Over this 10 month program, the Lancaster County cohort:
Participated in racial equity training led by Race Forward, a nonprofit racial justice organization, and in smaller group trainings with practitioners with business expertise
Engaged Lancaster County businesses and the larger community throughout this initiative to ensure their voices were represented in any strategies that were developed
Identified structural barriers that business owners face, and developed recommendations for equitable business recovery using input from the community, to enhance and fill in gaps that exist in current initiatives
In July 2022, the cohort finalized a multi-year plan for Lancaster County. In 2023, we rebranded as the Reimagining Our Community (ROC) Cohort to continue the work in Lancaster County, and we are currently working on implementing ideas that sparked from the learning journey.
Throughout their learning journey, the ROC cohort engaged more than four dozen BIPOC-small business owners, and with their help, identified three strategic priorities:
Strengthen trust among resource providers and BIPOC-owned small businesses
Build equitable access to capital for BIPOC-owned small businesses
Strengthen community for BIPOC-owned small businesses
The strategic plan includes clear goals and actionable steps to implement solutions within a three to five-year timeline.