A small-business summit Tuesday had a tone of seriousness that pervaded despite including comedy, singing, acai bowls and Chinese food. The current goal is just to survive rather than thrive for many businesses and entrepreneurs, participants heard while swapping tips on where to find retail space, how to energize community by partnering with the arts and what to focus on for the long term.
Events known as 617 Day are a nod to the Massachusetts area code chosen to commemorate the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and recently became the date the Celtics won their past two NBA championships. (The event is held, as Americans write it, on 6/17.)
This year, the Cambridge Local First network of more than 400 local businesses held its first 617 Day celebration as a small-business summit. Hosted at The Comedy Studio in Harvard Square, the Small Business Summit offered three free panels on funding; diversity, equity and inclusion; and the impact of arts on the economy.
After a breakfast of build-your-own acai bowls from SoBol, summit attendees listened in and took what they needed for their business from each panel.
Panel 1: Creative capital solutions
The first panel was The Future of Small Business Funding on finding the balance between financial and social capital for each unique business.
Panelist Betty Francisco, chief executive of the Boston Impact Initiative, believes integrating capital based on the stage the business is at is the best way to “provide different types of capital more sustainably.” When Francisco was starting her youth fitness business, Reimagine Play, she spent a year exploring financing options before finding the grant that was best for her and her business goals.
One financing option mentioned was the Biz-M-Power grant from the state economic development agency MassDevelopment. The grant can be used for a multitude of business needs, from hiring employees to improving customer experience by installing new floors, said the vice president of community investment at MassDevelopment, Theresa Ng. The next application round for the grant opens in late fall.
Massachusetts provided more than $100 million of pandemic relief to small businesses. Even with American Rescue Plan Act benefits ending last December, there is still more state and federal governments can do for small businesses, said Francisco and fellow panelist Jessica David, co-founder and president of Local Return, a community wealth firm in Rhode Island.
Financial institutions should allow retirement funds to be invested in the local community, as permitted in Michigan, David said. Francisco agreed: “We need our state budget to reflect our values, which is [that] we value small business.”
While Ng, a state employee, withheld her opinions, she said grants “shift not only how much capital is available, but who these programs are designed for,” meaning more grants becoming available to minority-owned businesses.
“We have an economic crisis for small businesses in Cambridge in terms of procurement,” said Nicola Williams, panel moderator and founder of the marketing and event planning firm The Williams Agency. Williams recommended increasing worker ownership of businesses through cooperative business models and the proposed federal bipartisan bill known as The Promotion and Expansion of Private Employee Ownership Act of 2025.
The city of Cambridge has an information session on business successions and employee buyouts planned for June 24.
For business owners looking for retail space, Williams encouraged summit attendees to visit a Cambridge Redevelopment Authority Neighborhood Storefronts Project event June 28-29. Small-business owners can explore the affordable ground-level retail spaces the redevelopment authority is creating after acquiring the former YouthBuild space at 1175 Cambridge St., Inman Square.
Panel 2: The inclusive imperative
After a coffee and networking break, a panel explored small businesses upholding diversity, equity and inclusion.
With DEI programming under attack by the federal government, the focus of small businesses and their supporters is to “help other people survive right now, not thrive,” said moderator Alexandria Eberhardt, executive director of the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce.
Eberhardt recognized that starting a business “can be a debilitating, complicated process.” Due to this, the chamber launched programming recently entirely in Spanish for business owners and entrepreneurs that speak Spanish as a first language. It is also restructuring its resources to target its outreach and mentoring to make entering the business world more manageable for the group that makes up its potential members.
While the resources discussed at the panel get business owners “a seat at the table,” panelist Susu Wong, founder and chief executive of the marketing firm Tomo360, said collaboration between businesses and community members is what truly creates an “inclusive business ecosystem.”
Panel 3: Arts, entertainment and the economy
A relationship between arts venues and businesses generates economic success, said participants in the third panel on why arts and entertainment are essential to a city’s financial health.
“There is no reason to go to a community without the arts,” said summit host and panel moderator Daniel Berger-Jones, co-founder of the Boston History Co. Shopping and dining is just a customer exchange; arts and entertainment are what make a community, he said.
With this in mind, panelist Jared Stanley, an economic development specialist for the city of Cambridge, suggested businesses bring in local artists, bars and breweries for collaborative events and offer discounts to customers who also shop at another local business. Date nights for arts and entertainment outings can also be shopping and dining opportunities, Club Passim executive director Micheal Busack noted.
JJ Gonson, who had a bricks-and-mortar venue for her Once music events in Somerville that closed five years ago, said collaboration between businesses and artists is good in theory, but the major challenge businesses face is a “space issue”: She can count the number of arts venues in Cambridge “on one hand,” she said.
To keep venues open, Busack encouraged patrons to become members of their favorite art institutions. Although it may seem “meaningless,” he said “there is value in showing you’d be sad if they didn’t exist.”
Additionally, Multicultural Arts Center managing director Adria Katz recommended paying more, if possible, for pay-what-you-can-tickets to increase access to the arts for the broader community.
Bringing arts and business together at the summit, Jenny Bonham Carter led a singalong of “Lean on Me” as attendees proceeded to a luncheon at WuSong Road.
617 Day celebrations would continue at a block party Tuesday evening as another opportunity for “Harvard residents and businesses to convene, connect and celebrate each other,” Berger-Jones said.
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