are watching their bank account for
stimulus deposit another opportunity
opens up today we're talking about small
businesses
small businesses can get up to 25
thousand dollars as a grant from the
state of california this is a relief
grant
and joining us to answer all of your
questions as regional director of the
san diego and imperial small business
development center network danny
fitzgerald
danny thank you so much for joining us
this morning good morning thank you for
having me
of course yeah this is an important
conversation we need to have a lot of
people have so many different questions
we'll try to answer as many as we can
let's start with this how can businesses
apply
who's eligible absolutely so
the state of california this was
announced by governor newsom about
about three and a half weeks ago a 500
million dollar program
that's a relief grant specifically for
small businesses uh that grand
application
opened this morning you can find that at
ca relief grant.com
it is being administered by an
intermediary a non-profit
financial institution called lendistry
but us at the small business development
center we're here of course as one of
the primary
assistance partners helping people be
able to apply um
small businesses are eligible as well as
non-profits
a couple of quick things on the
eligibility number one is you do have to
have been in business
prior to june 1st 2019 and also you need
to be able to have gross revenues
under two and a half million dollars um
you know so so
basically it is really targeting some of
the small businesses the grant is
designed to target
um hardest hit geographic areas of
course san diego we're here in the
purple tier so we certainly fit in that
area
and then of course some of the hardest
hit industries as well in particular
restaurants personal services hair
salons barber shops
etc and of course all of our tourism
industry and
as you said the grants are up to 25 000
and it's like i said it's a grant so
this is not a loan it's not something
you have to repay
and how many employees must you
fewer than what 300 employees or how
does this work for this
for this grant unlike the federal
stimulus it is not based on employee
accounts based on your gross revenue
so they will so one of the requirements
of it is that you
do submit either your 2018 or your 2019
tax returns
and that way on that tax return of
course it has to show what your gross
revenue was per that for that year
and so it needs to be able to show that
it was under two and a half million
dollars
they will ask about your employee
account on the application but the
employee account
uh doesn't factor in on eligibility you
could have no employees you could have
lots of employees as long as your
revenue count is under two and a half
million
dollars so let's say people start
applying today how long will it take for
the funds to be distributed
and so the grant application opens today
and closes january 8.
um unlike past grants this is not a
first come first serve they're not even
going to start reviewing the
applications until the round closes
and this is the first of two rounds so
it's half of the money will be uh will
be accounted for in this first round if
you don't get a grant in the first round
you do automatically roll over into the
second round which will be released
probably
sometime in february in terms of funds
disbursement uh the soonest funds will
go
out is probably about a week after it
closes to 30 days after it closes that's
kind of the time frame that they're
they're looking at in terms of fund
disbursement if you are
awarded the grant there will be just a
couple other basic questions that you'd
be providing
um and some simple information such as a
current uh
current business license or business tax
certificate your articles of
incorporation if that applies to you
etc basically some of the uh the core
broad prevention types of situations
danny can a small business apply for
this grant
and the latest ppp loan no they're two
different things
so can you apply for both absolutely you
can apply for both the key is you just
can't use them for the same thing for
example you can't say i used the this
grant to pay my january rent
and then i also got a new ppp and also
use that to pay my january rent
that's the only thing but of course
small businesses have so many expenses
and so many things
that are certainly coming up still in
the next six months
that that's easy to do and you know in
terms of accounting for that that's what
uh what we're here to do
everything from helping you prepare the
application to certainly
knowing what you need to be able to save
in terms of records um
that's something the small business
development center does again we provide
free one-on-one business advising
we're funded by the by the federal
government the small business
administration as well as the state of
california
to be able to provide this service to
small businesses and that was going to
be my next question so if people have
any questions how do they reach out to
you i know
you know with unemployment and two
different things it's hard to get
through it's hard to get any
you know to get people on the phone at
least it was in the beginning
if people have some questions they need
to sit down they need to talk to
somebody
how do they reach you so they reach us
they visit our website
and then they can click request
counseling our staff is a little light
this week but they're fully up and
running as of next week
you visit sdivsbdc.org
and you can click request counseling and
we'll be able to provide that assistance
to you again
the application's not due until the end
of next week but we're certainly here to
be able to assist
you also on that on that site we have a
page specifically dedicated to this
as well as um what we call an on-demand
webinar so basically it's a recorded
webinar
that'll kind of walk you through the
steps also for applying and
we certainly will have plenty of people
be able to assist you
in terms of being able to get that help
and again our assistance is at no cost
okay this is very helpful information
and for those viewers who are watching
this right now
we're going to post this entire
interview on our website cbs8.com you'll
be able to re-watch this
we don't expect you to remember all that
so but again if you're ready to apply
you can go to ca relief grant.com
danny thank you so much for answering
our questions anything else that our
viewers need to know
again like i want to reiterate this is
not something that's first come first
serve it's more important that you're
complete and accurate
you do have until next friday so don't
rush through the application
make sure you double check all the
information so it's complete and
accurate
and so that way you are that increases
your likelihood of getting the award
yeah and again if you don't get it this
time you automatically roll over to your
next opportunity which is
you said in february right correct okay
all right danny thank you so much
thank you you have a wonderful day yes
happy new year to you happy early new
year
thank you