Grant Funding Slow to Fund Struggling Main Streets in Minnesota

(KNSI) — The COVID-19 pandemic is almost three years old, and some small businesses are still in recovery mode.

That concerns Brandon Toner, director of the office of small business partnerships, Department of Employment and Economic Development. He says three out of every four jobs in Minnesota are in businesses with fewer than 500 employees, and while a large manufacturing plant might create a lot of jobs for a community, the impact of small businesses can’t be overlooked. “These are places that make a city, or Main Street or a town, a place where people want to live, people want to spend money.”

DEED oversees the Main Street Economic Revitalization Program. The program will make grants to nonprofit partner organizations to fund 30% matching grants up to $750,000 and guaranteed loans up to $2 million to eligible recipients for eligible projects.

Claire Thomas of the East Side Neighborhood Development Company says one of the issues is navigating the maze to land the funding.

“A lot of those lifelines that were put out to businesses during the pandemic, like PPP loans, they really were able to help a lot of businesses. But for a lot of micro businesses, BIPOC-owned businesses, those programs were still pretty tough to access.”

One partner in distributing funding is the Initiative Foundation which supports economic and community development in 163 cities and 14 counties across central Minnesota. The foundation plans to support economic recovery projects in downtown/main street corridors such as Little Falls, Cold Spring, and St. Cloud.

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MNC Reporter Mike Moen contributed to this story.

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