Economic Empowerment: Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA)
Starting and growing a business is challenging for any entrepreneur.
But securing the financing for a new company can be especially challenging for BIPOC entrepreneurs.
That’s why the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA) came into existence in 1971. More than five decades later, MEDA is still standing and the demand for its services remains strong.
For the past four years, MEDA’s CEO and president has been Dorothy Bridges, who has deep and diverse experience within the Twin Cities financial community. She’s been a board director of U.S. Bancorp since 2018, she was a senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and she’s well-regarded for her long tenure as CEO and president of Franklin National Bank of Minneapolis.
MEDA’s mission is easily stated—helping BIPOC entrepreneurs succeed.
To help individual entrepreneurs achieve their goals, MEDA offers services in three areas: business consulting, access to alternative forms of capital, and connections to peers, corporate partners, and resources.
“The distinguishing part about MEDA services is that we look at the whole business, and not just a certain part of the business,” Bridges says.
“Many of our small businesses come in with a request for capital,” she says. However, a MEDA consultant may discover ways that the business could improve its operations before taking on loan debt. “We have capital, but we also have wraparound services,” Bridges says.
“Those wraparound services don’t end at the time you get the loan,” she says. “In fact, they intensify after you receive that loan. You are connected to a consultant. That person checks in with you on a regular basis. If something occurs that is a challenge for the business and the business is facing headwinds, we can get in front of it a lot sooner.”
MEDA had a busy year in 2025. Through its lending and consulting programs, it served almost 800 business owners. It also provided support to more than 250 active loan clients.
Last year, MEDA deployed more than $18.6 million in capital, including more than $10.4 million in new loans.
“Our ultimate goal is to work with the businesses and position them in such a way that they are bankable,” Bridges says. “MEDA is a gap filler.” In many cases, a small business is turned down for a bank loan, so the owner looks to MEDA for help.
Oftentimes, MEDA is part of a “bigger capital stack” for a business, meaning that MEDA is providing one of the financial pieces, Bridges says. For example, she says, “MEDA would take secondary position behind a financial institution to help build out a business’s operation.”
Several financial institutions have executives who serve on MEDA’s board. “They have firsthand knowledge of MEDA’s operation,” Bridges says, so they have familiarity with the types of analyses done by MEDA’s business consultants, and they have a good understanding of the wraparound services that are offered.
Financial institutions with leaders on MEDA’s board are Associated Bank, Chase, Huntington Bank, Old National Bank, and U.S. Bank.
In 2023, under a state government program, MEDA was chosen to distribute and manage about $22 million in loans to businesses in distressed neighborhoods.
