MANCHESTER, NH — Small businesses in the city still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and looking to protect themselves from a similar future crisis can still tap into a grant program set up in the wake of the pandemic.
The Small Business Grants and Program Assistance fund has provided $1,241,057 to 126 small businesses in the city. The program has continuously run since early 2022, with grants awarded as applications are made, but has changed its focus as the immediate effects of the pandemic have faded.
The $2,500 to $10,000 reimbursement and matching grants are from American Rescue Plan Act money, and were initially aimed at helping to cover pandemic-related business losses. Last summer, the program pivoted to provide capacity-building matching grants to help build resilience in the city’s small-business community. Businesses that received the grant through the first iteration are eligible for the second.
The city’s Economic Development Department under the direction of Jodie Nazaka with countless hours of legwork by Erik Lesniak as the department’s business liaison, has been the driver of success for this program, meeting with individual businesses and helping them navigate the grant application process.
The program has been highly successful in providing financial assistance to small businesses in the city, Jeffrey Belanger, Manchester’s director of planning and community development, said Thursday.
“The city recognized the need to think creatively about how to help Manchester’s small businesses during the pandemic, and the SBGPA program was the result,” he said. “Due to its success, we have expanded it to go beyond recovering from economic losses and include helping businesses build their capacities to thrive and stay in Manchester.”
Grants are for businesses with 15 or fewer full-time equivalent employees and less than $2,000,000 in gross annual receipts. Grants have been awarded to businesses ranging from barber shops and salons, to yoga and Pilates studios, to restaurants and retail stores, and more, city officials said.
The businesses on average, employ three and four people; 63 are women-owned and 52 minority-owned, based on voluntary reporting, said Tom Brescia, the city’s ARPA program administrator.
The first iteration, after the city was awarded $21.6 million in ARPA money in 2021, was for reimbursement for documented income losses tied to the onset of the pandemic. The city received another $21.6 million in mid-2022 for a total $43.2 million. The ARPA money went to a variety of programs, including the SBGPA. It must be used up by the end of 2026.
“This first program iteration has a specific purpose intended to provide a one-time COVID relief-related infusion of funding,” said Dan Orr, a planner with the Planning and Community Development department’s Community Improvement Program Division.
Last summer, the secondary small business capacity-building support program was launched. It offers matching grants to assist with longer-term sustainability for small businesses related to marketing, accounting, branding and sales support needs.
Brescia said that receiving funding from the first iteration is a prerequisite to applying for the second iteration, and applicants in the second round must answer the same questions regarding eligibility again. “This is to ensure that a previous recipient of funding has not since expanded beyond the point of qualifying as a small business,” he said.
A full description of eligibility requirements and other information, as well as an application, is available on the city’s ARPA webpage.
The grants are for all qualifying businesses, but minority or women-owned businesses are encouraged to apply. Businesses that had to temporarily close because of the COVID stay-at-home order (like salons and massage businesses), child care centers, and those that lost employees because of the pandemic are ideal for the funds.
Eligible costs for COVID loss reimbursement must be from after March 3, 2021, and include rent, mortgage, utility bills, accounts payable, and other fixed costs; wages; resources to establish entity online (for example, a business had to revamp its website to make e-commerce or delivery available to customers); reimbursement for perishable inventory that was lost because of an interruption of business; increased costs from directly addressing coronavirus.
The SBGPA program funded with the ARPA money that began in 2022, was a relaunch of a 2020 program that provided grants to 53 Manchester businesses, created 16 jobs and retained 38 employees, city officials said at the time.
In October 2021, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen agreed to use ARPA money for the SBGPA relaunch, and contracted with Deo Mwano Consultancy and the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce for grant administration, marketing and outreach.