Can I have a skinny latte, a blueberry muffin and a corporate loan please?

One of the real challenges facing a lot of companies at the moment is access to funds.

The economic turmoil over recent years has led to the loan markets largely drying up and without access to suitable cash reserves a number of firms have hit cashflow problems and have gone out of business.

Similarly, a lot of businesses that have wanted to start up in the recession haven’t had access to loan funds to enable them to do so.

The end result is that jobs have been lost.

The global coffee chain Starbucks though think that they may have an answer to some of the funding problems.

They have just launched a campaign to try to stimulate job growth in America by launching a “Create Jobs for the USA” initiative.

They are partnering in this initiative with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a group of private financial institutions that provide affordable loans to certain parts of the American population including low-income people and communities.

As well as donating $5 million to get the project off the ground Starbucks are also covering the admin expenses of OFN as well as paying for the manufacture of wristbands which will be given to any of their customers who donate $5 in one of their coffee shops.

Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz said “Small businesses are…employing more than half of all private sector workers – but this critical jobs engine has stalled. We’ve got to thaw the channels of credit so that community businesses can start hiring again.”

100% of the donations made will go to OFN to help fund loans to community businesses including small businesses, microenterprises and nonprofit organizations.

Starbucks themselves though have also been a victim of the recession with several hundred stores being closed in the US alone in recent years and some sceptics may argue that this is just a PR initiate by them.

My personal view though is that if this initiative helps to create jobs then it can only be a good thing.