Irving Media Hosts Small Business Sustainability Summit in Riverside

Overview: Christen Irving hosted the Small Business Sustainability Summit at PassionNet Studios in Riverside to address revenue diversification. The event featured expert panels and workshops focused on helping entrepreneurs build resilient businesses through banking tools, grants, and automated systems. Speakers emphasized aligning new income streams with core missions to ensure long-term stability against economic shifts. Aryana Noroozi Speakers, panelists and small business owners gathered at PassionNet Studios in Riverside for the Small Business Sustainability Summit, an interactive session built around a single idea: a business with only one way to make money is one bad month away from closing. The event was organized by Irving Media Consultants – founded by Christen Irving, who also serves as the workshop's host and moderator. Irving said the idea for the summit grew out of her own experience running a for-profit and nonprofit media operation, and from lessons she learned from working alongside Black Voice News publisher Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds. 'I've learned a lot about funding and revenue diversification, and I realized as a business owner, that there's a lot that I wasn't taught, even in different conferences and different things I went to, about bringing in different streams of revenue,' Irving said. 'I wanted to take the lessons I've learned from philanthropy and journalism, and bring it into the small business world.' The morning built toward that theme through a mix of panels and one-on-one strategy sessions: a discussion on leveraging banking tools and lines of credit with AmPac Capital's Brian Kennedy Jr. and Bank of America's Liz Galvan; a talk on resilience and purpose called 'The Empowerment Mindset'; and a session on positioning a business for grants, sponsors and investors led by Gitta Williams of My Document Pro. In the afternoon, attendees participated in workshops on grants and partnerships, and on sales, donor stewardship and membership. Peter Lamb of Lamb Consulting speaks with Christen Irving, founder and CEO of Irving Media Consultants during the Small Business Sustainability Summit at PassionNet Studios in Riverside on August 28, 2026. (Aryana Noroozi for Black Voice News) The day's centerpiece panel, 'Revenue Diversification 101: Products, Programs, Partnerships & More,' moderated by Peter Lamb of Lamb Consulting, brought together nonprofit and media leaders, including Claire Glipa of Family Promise of Riverside, Manuel Saucedo and Justin Verdusco of KVCR/NPR, Dr. Chris Black of Master Your Life, and J Pash of PassionNet Pro, to discuss the ways in which their organizations diversified income when traditional funding shrinks. Panelists described losing federal dollars, rebuilding donation pipelines, meeting audiences on new platforms and using data alongside instinct to decide where to invest their time. Throughout the panel, an appearing theme was alignment: speakers agreed that diversifying income only works when new revenue streams stay tied to an organization's core mission rather than pulling it in unrelated directions. The group discussed methods to support the idea of alignment. Lamb shared the idea of automating systems. 'You focus on what you do best, and you outsource the rest… If you're a great salesperson, don't sit after designing ads,' he said. 'You are not that good to do it all. Let me say it again, focus on what you do best, outsource the rest.' Attendees listen during a panel discussion at the Small Business Sustainability Summit at PassionNet Studios in Riverside on August 28, 2026. (Aryana Noroozi for Black Voice News) Jefferson Glippa also shared a similar sentiment. 'There's no reason, particularly if you're a one‑woman shop, two‑, three‑man shop, that you should have to do everything over and over again,' she said. 'Do it once, find that system, and then automate it. There is automation and an app for everything, and it also helps with your consistency.' That theme carried into the day's fireside chat, 'The Business Case for Philanthropy,' in which Irving interviewed Brown-Hinds, publisher of Black Voice News and a board member of the James Irvine Foundation – about building a for-profit and nonprofit hybrid business. Brown-Hinds described how her organization partners its journalism arm with foundation funding tied to specific reporting projects. 'If you have a for-profit business that has a social mission, you can partner with a nonprofit,' she said. 'As a news organization or a media organization, we've had our proposals written into their grants.' Brown-Hinds also urged business owners to be deliberate, not desperate, when approaching funders: 'Making sure our package and proposal is so good, it's like an offer that they cannot refuse.' Dr. Brown-Hinds speaks with an attendee during the Small Business Sustainability Summit at PassionNet Studios in Riverside on August 28, 2026. (Aryana Noroozi for Black Voice News) Irving closed the session by tying the conversations back to her own reason for creating the summit. 'Today is about you thinking about how do I fortify myself so that when the storms come, because they're coming, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when,' she said. 'You want to make sure that you can withstand, that you return the direction of the sail and keep going, and you're not stuck,' she said. Altura Credit Union and Irving Media Consultants sponsored the summit, with community partners including the Black Chamber of Commerce Inland Empire, AmPac Community Capital, Bank of America and Caravanserai, and media partners Black Voice News, the Urban Business Journal and Inland Valley News.