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JPMorgan Chase launched an initiative Tuesday to boost its small-business lending clientele to 10 million customers, from 7 million, over the next several years.

To do that, the bank aims to hire 1,000 additional small-business bankers and double its stable of senior business consultants working in branches in targeted areas such as Alabama, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

As part of the American Dream Initiative, as the bank is labeling it, JPMorgan intends to lend roughly $80 billion to small businesses over the next 10 years and expand one-on-one coaching and technical assistance to 115,000 small-business owners in more than 80 cities in that time.

Beyond that, JPMorgan wants to improve affordability for renters and boost homeownership opportunities; expand access to financial education and skills-based training; support efforts that improve access to healthcare; and offer more financing for schools, hospitals, nonprofits and local governments, the bank said Tuesday.

“The American Dream is alive, but it’s slipping out of reach for too many people — and for future generations,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement. “By reigniting the American Dream through smart local investments and policies that we know work, we can work together to make the economy benefit more people — helping them buy homes, get good jobs and build better lives.”

In Alabama particularly, the bank wants to triple its presence – to 35 branches – by 2030 and open its first community center in the state. It also aims to help local business owners compete for supply chain contract opportunities connected to Alabama’s aerospace, defense and government industries, the bank said.

“Small businesses are essential to economic growth and opportunity in communities across America,” Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business, said in a statement Tuesday. “We are supporting entrepreneurs by combining local, on-the-ground engagement with the scale, capital and expertise of the nation’s leading small business bank — so they can start, grow and scale in the communities they call home.”

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