This year, 111 small-business owners in Marin County received a $2,500 grant through an agency partnership dedicated to assisting some of the hardest-hit microbusinesses during the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
The Marin Microbusiness Grant Program was funded by the State of California’s Office of the Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA). The County of Marin, the Marin Small Business Development Center (SBDC), and Dominican University of California partnered on program oversight. The partnership was strengthened by the strategic connections made with more than a dozen local nonprofit organizations that facilitated the connection with microbusiness owners with a gross annual revenue less than $50,000.
The Small Business Development Center promoted the Marin Microbusiness Grant Program during an event at Canal Alliance in San Rafael earlier this year.
Out of 211 applications, 148 were deemed qualified for the grants after a review process. A random lottery, utilizing a verified website, was used to select the recipients. The grants were distributed this fall to a diverse group of businesses from throughout the county with these overall statistics:
- 61% of awardees were women
- 5 were military veterans
- 51% were minorities
- 50% came from the fields of art/entertainment; professional or technical services; and housecleaning and janitorial.
- 50% were located in San Rafael, Novato and West Marin.
Miriam Karell of the Marin SBDC said the community-led approach led to a great deal of the grant program’s success. “Some of our lessons learned include the importance of partnering with local agencies to offer in-person support at events, providing culturally appropriate interpretation support, and spending time with the applicants to help them understand the process and filling out the application with them.”
Jamillah Jordan, Marin County Equity Director, was especially pleased that more than half of the funds were allocated to minority-owned businesses, “especially given only 27% of our population is made of people who identify as a person of color,” she said.
“This funding made a difference for these business owners,” Karell said. “As we look at the data of who applied and received the grants, we were pleased our efforts were able to offer support to underserved populations.”
Creating the local program and accepting the state funding was contingent on the County of Marin’s participation.
