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Some Minnesota small businesses can apply for $60.3 million in $10,000 grants starting Tuesday

Published  June 22, 2020 4:01pm CDT
Coronavirus
FOX 9
article

(FOX 9) - Small businesses can apply for a new round of $10,000 grants from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development starting Tuesday.

The Minnesota Small Business Relief Grants Program was approved by the state legislature and signed by the Governor earlier this month in an effort to support Minnesotan owned and operated businesses that suffered financial hardship related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In total, $60.3 million will be made available for grant awards. 50 percent of the awards will be distributed in Greater Minnesota and 50 percent will be distributed in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area.

DEED says the grants will be issued through a computer-generated, randomized selection process, but there are some earmarked dollars for businesses with six or fewer fulltime workers ($18 million), minority owned businesses ($10 million), businesses that are majority-owned and operated by veterans ($2.5 million) businesses that are majority owned and operated by women ($2.5 million) and operators of indoor retail and food markets with an ethnic cultural emphasis ($2.5 million).

The applications can be submitted in the 10 days between Tuesday, June 23 and Thursday, July 2.

Here is the information from DEED’s website about what business owners are eligible to apply:

To qualify, an applicant must:

  • Be a private for-profit business that has a permanent physical location in Minnesota.
  • Be majority owned by a permanent resident of Minnesota.
  • Be in good standing with the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Minnesota Department of Revenue as of March 1, 2020.
  • Employ the equivalent of 50 or fewer full-time workers.
  • Be able to demonstrate financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
  • NOTE: Businesses that received funding under the Small Business Emergency Loan Program (SBEL) are NOT eligible for this program. (However, businesses that received funding through the various Small Business Administration emergency loan programs ARE still eligible for this program.)