With funding from the City of Indianapolis, LISC Indianapolis announced the grantees for the latest round of small business capacity building support. This round of funding totals $485,000 in grants to 14 community organizations.
During the pandemic, the demand for business support services grew substantially in Indianapolis, putting pressure on existing business development organizations and creating demand for newer organizations to emerge. As a result, new business development organizations (BDOs) were created, and existing ones expanded to bring new programming and services for business owners. This rapid growth was not met by similar growth in internal infrastructure to make programming sustainable over time. In response, LISC Indianapolis applied for and received $1.7M in ARPA funds from the City of Indianapolis to create a Small Business Technical Assistance Hub and expand the LISC Capacity Building Program.
The LISC-administered Capacity Building program provides assistance to nine disproportionately COVID-impacted business development organizations. Subgrants to these organizations total $275,000 and will be used to develop a key business area within their organization that needs capacity-building resources, such as financial management, strategic planning, digital transformation and/or executive coaching. The grantees include:
In addition, through a partnership with Be Nimble, LISC Indianapolis is offering $190,000 in total programmatic support to four BDOs to grow their internal infrastructure to make their programming more sustainable and provide culturally competent services to small business owners from historically under-resourced and underserved communities. The four BDOs that will be supported through this effort include:
“The City of Indianapolis recognizes how important small, local businesses are for a broadly prosperous community,” said Mayor Joe Hogsett. “These grants are focused on organizations that have the greatest potential to foster new businesses and entrepreneurs in communities hardest hit during the pandemic.”
“LISC’s Capacity Building program is designed to equip and strengthen local BDOs so that they can consolidate, grow, and expand their business support services to serve small business owners from disinvested communities in Indianapolis,” said Dr. David Hampton, LISC Indianapolis Executive Director. “It is critical that the entire community come together to create a better ecosystem that will support small businesses, especially minority-owned businesses.”
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