The Asian Business League of Southern California has recognized PACE as their 2016 Nonprofit of the Year!

In their press release, the Asian Business League of Southern California (ABL) described perfectly what we do and why we do it:

“Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment (PACE) is a community development organization that creates economic solutions to meet the challenges of employment, education, housing, the environment and business development for low income residents in the Pacific Asian and other diverse communities. Founded in 1976, PACE has a stellar track record of providing services to ethnic minority, low-income populations across Los Angeles County. Over the past 40 years, PACE has served more than 800,000 people throughout LA County.  In 2015 alone, PACE assisted over 40,000 low-income individuals and families of the Los Angeles Area with its wide scope of services.  While PACE works throughout Los Angeles, its primary market is low-income residents in 102 zip codes throughout the South Bay, Central Los Angeles, and San Gabriel Valley.  PACE staff members collectively speak more than 40 languages and dialects.

Although initially created to address the employment needs of the Asian Pacific Islander communities, PACE has expanded its services in response to community needs. For example, in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, PACE came to the aid of many ethnic minority small business owners who were faced with rebuilding their businesses by helping them apply for SBA disaster loans. In 1993, identifying an ongoing need in the communities served by PACE for business development assistance, PACE’s Business Development Center (BDC) was launched with a Federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Community Services, Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI) program. The BDC was created to provide counseling, technical assistance, training, business certification, small capital grants and business loan packaging  to small businesses in the communities served by PACE. To date, PACE’s BDC has counseled/trained 32,036 aspiring entrepreneurs to start, stabilize, and expand over 11,718 businesses and create/retain more than 15,968 jobs. After the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, PACE’s BDC provided additional disaster loan packaging services and assisted hundreds of minority- and women-owned businesses in bidding and obtaining contracts for building demolition, tree cutting, removing and hauling, clean-up, installation of light posts and traffic signals, repairing sidewalk, and water and sewage systems.”

The Asian Business League of Southern California (ABL) is a non-profit organization founded in 1984 with the mission to facilitate relationships and connections that generate business opportunities for individuals and companies interested in both Pacific Rim and local Asian American markets. They educate and foster the next generation of professionals with their informative conferences and strong member base.