Supporting Struggling Small Businesses
The pandemic and Covid-19 mitigations began inflicting immense damage to many small businesses in March of 2020. Thousands of small businesses initially applied for Illinois Business Interruption Grants. While these grants helped some small businesses, approximately 80% of eligible small businesses which applied were not awarded a grant.
Subsequently, Illinois received over 8 billion dollars in American Rescue Plan Act funds. However, only $250 million were allocated for Back to Business grant program. These funds will likely be exhausted before many struggling and eligible businesses receive grants.
Illinois still has billions of federal funds and should replenish the Back to Business grant program with an additional $300 million. Our policymakers should not pick winners and loses when there is adequate funding to support the struggling small businesses.
House Bill HB5489 will allocate an additional $300 million for the Back to Business grant program. Please ask your legislators to support this legislation so that struggling small businesses can receive the support they need to recover from a pandemic, and associated mitigations, which they could not control.
Illinois Announces Back To Business Grant Program – SBAC Testifies at Joint Committee Hearing
Back to Business Grant Program AUG 13th – The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity launched the Back to Business grant program for struggling small businesses on Wednesday. On August 12th, the SBAC participated in a joint Illinois Senate hearing to learn more about the program. We explained how important it is for the…
How small businesses are being impacted by the rise in COVID-19 cases
Elliot Richardson, co-founder and president of the Small Business Advocacy Council, joins Anna Davlantes to talk about how small businesses are being impacted by the Delta variant and COVID-19 cases rising around the country. Has there been enough support to keep our small businesses running throughout the pandemic? Please translate this page to the language of…
IACCE Chamber Call with Senate President Harmon
IACCE Chamber Call with Senate President Harmon The SBAC and Illinois Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives hosted Senate President Harmon, Senator Castro and Senator Sims for a broad discussion about how the small business community and Illinois Senate can work together. There has never been a more important time to advocate for the small…
