Overview
The Small Business Continuity Fund program, a partnership between the Office of Economic Development, Dallas Development Fund (DDF), and National Development Council (NDC), was designed to assist low-to-moderate (LMI) microenterprise business owners (5 or fewer employees) or small businesses with 50 or fewer employees that retain LMI workers within the City of Dallas. City Council has allocated just over $8 million in funds for this program through the CARES Act, with funds coming from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding and U.S. Department of Treasury Coronavirus Relieve Fund (CRF) funding. A minimum of $1 million will be used for the loan program; the remainder will be used for grants.

Businesses could apply for either a grant or a loan, and must demonstrate at least a 25% reduction in revenue as a result of the COVID-19 virus. The grant funding was initially divided into two categories, one city-wide, and the other targeted to businesses in high poverty or low median income census tracts as designated on the map below.

Initial applications were accepted from May 4th to May 11th, 2020. A lottery was then held to select businesses for consideration of funding. Businesses who submitted a complete application were eligible for selection in the lottery. On May 22nd, using numbers generated from Random.org, each City of Dallas business was put in an ordered list. .Selected businesses are required to provide complete documentation to a third-party provider prior to the execution of a grant or loan.