Richmond extends deadline for small business, nonprofit relief program

Application deadline now Oct. 19

Published October 6, 2020 by Sydney Lake

The city of Richmond has extended the deadline for its Richmond Recovers Grant Program, giving small businesses and nonprofits until Oct. 19 to apply for grants ranging from $10,000 to $15,000, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s office announced Tuesday.

The city allocated $3 million of its federal CARES Act funding to the program, which has $1.68 million left to award. Grant amounts range based on a qualifying organization’s number of current active full-time employees.

“This grant program is providing much-needed financial relief to small businesses and nonprofit organizations that have lost revenue due to COVID-19,” Stoney said in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to make more financial resources available to help our Richmond businesses.”

The first wave of grant awards from the program was split among 123 applicants who will receive a total of $1.32 million in grant funding. Grant funds can be used to reimburse the costs of employee wages (including the cost of benefits), rent, mortgage and utilities for commercial workspaces as well as working capital. Of the 123 approved grant recipients, 42 are restaurants and nine are nonprofit organizations.

The Department of Economic Development is working with grant applicants to ensure all required information is submitted.

“Nearly 500 grant applications were started using our online application portal, and 300 of those applications had sufficient information for an initial review. We are modifying our eligibility criteria while we continue to follow up with applicants by email and telephone to get all of the information that we require to make decisions on the grant awards,” Leonard Sledge, director of Richmond’s Department of Economic Development, said in a statement. “We have also decided to extend the application deadline to allow more applications to be submitted.”

Program guidelines, eligibility requirements and the application can be found through RVAStrong.