While on a visit to the new minority-owned Washington, D.C. retail village Sycamore and Oak on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced $125 million in federal funding for more than 40 organizations helping underserved small businesses.
The White House is billing the investment as “a key pillar of ‘Bidenomics'" — the name given to the administration's push to sell President Joe Biden's economic agenda focused on growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up.
“Most of us, in fact, didn't grow up necessarily having parents or others in our direct community that understood all of these business principles and understood high finance,” Harris said. “A strong business accelerator is a one-stop shop for small businesses to succeed.”
The grants are part of the $125 million Capital Readiness Program, funded by a program reauthorized in the American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.
“This program marks what I think is the crucial next step in minority businesses’ pathway to the American dream,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday. “This is the largest technical assistance program of its kind in the history of the Commerce Department.”
Harris said Friday’s announcement stems from the administration’s “sense of responsibility to find innovative ways to support our entrepreneurs and our small business owners.
“In order to expand access to capital, we have to think outside the box,” she said.
Officials on Thursday’s call said they received 1,000 applications for the program. The 43 organizations that were selected and will receive funding include nonprofits, private sector entities and higher education institutions located around the country.
“They're going to form partnerships to help underserved entrepreneurs who are in need of the resources, the tools, the training, the technical assistance they need to start or scale their businesses in high-growth industries, like health care, climate resilient technology, asset management and infrastructure,” a senior administration official said.
Harris noted the organizations that were chosen have a “track record of supporting entrepreneurs in underserved communities.”
“They provide everything from mentorship to management courses to assistance [to] filling out business taxes,” she said.
The White House noted in a fact sheet that Friday’s announcement builds upon $300 million already given through the administration to aid small businesses. That funding comes from the the Small Business Administration’s Community Navigator Program and the Treasury Department’s State Small Business Credit Initiative.
The Capital Readiness Program is administered by the Minority Business Development Agency – which is part of the Department of Commerce and focused on supporting minority-owned businesses. A senior administration official on the call noted the agency was first created in 1969 at the end of the civil rights movement but was made permanent for the first time under Biden through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
The Biden administration has been in a full-force effort trying to sell the public on the president’s economic agenda.
Despite the now weeks-long push and positive economic indicators, a poll released by the New York Times and Siena College earlier this week found 49% of respondents rated economic conditions as poor. Only 20% saw conditions as good or excellent.