Black Small Business Owners Can Apply For $50K Grants To Buy A Commercial Vehicle

Many small businesses, including Black-owned ones, can use extra funding to help fuel their growth.

Acting to support small business owners, Progressive Insurance is now taking applications for its Driving Small Business Forward grant. This year’s program is offering $1 million in grants and business coaching assistance.

More specifically, It calls for 20 recipients to be selected and awarded a $50,000 grant each that can be used to buy a commercial vehicle for their business, according to a news release.

A year ago, it was reported that 10 small  business owners would be awarded $25,000 each to buy a commercial vehicle for their business. That means the latest effort is twice as large for the number of grant recipients and four times greater in overall grant value than the one in 2023.

Karen Bailo, commercial lines president at Progressive Insurance, stated, “As a purpose-led company, Progressive is committed to empowering small business owners on their entrepreneurial journey and to alleviate economic barriers.

“By the conclusion of this year’s program, we will have awarded over $1.5 million in grants to entrepreneurs across the country and we’re excited about the impact we’ve had in helping these businesses move forward.”

The fresh effort is intriguing, as a commercial vehicle could potentially be a good fit for a small business, depending on the type of enterprise. That could certainly be the case  if a vehicle is needed for such uses as delivering goods to consumers, driving to job sites, and picking up supplies among them.

Simultaneously, business owners often must decide how to use revenue or profits that best fit their needs, whether that’s hiring more workers, buying inventory, adding new locations, or other purposes.

The initiative comes as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that nearly 69% of small business owners rely on personal savings to fund their businesses while receiving limited access to capital.

To run this year’s grant program, Progressive is working with Hello Alice. Progressive calls itself one of the nation’s leading commercial auto insurers. Hello Alice was described as a financial technology organization that helps over one million small businesses access capital.

Along with the grant for their business. recipients this year will have a chance to take part in a 12-week Boost Camp. The Hello Alice program will provide business owners with tools and resources — including financial budgeting and customer acquisition – to help achieve their growth objectives.

To qualify, those interested must meet several criteria. For instance, entrants must be the leading executive of a small business with 10 or fewer employees, less than $5 million in annual gross revenue, and show a need for a qualifying commercial vehicle and business coaching.

The application deadline is June 14 at 6:00 p.m.  Recipients will be contacted by email and announced in August. Go here to apply and get more details.

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