Small Business Continuity Fund 

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 allocated just over $8 million in funds for this program through the CARES Act, with funds coming from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding and the U.S. Department of Treasury Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) funding. A minimum of $1 million was used for the loan program; the remainder funded grants. All funding is deployed and no applications are currently being accepted.

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.

Applications were accepted from May 4th to May 11th, 2020 and again from February 3-February 10, 2021. A lottery was then held to select businesses for consideration of funding. Businesses who submitted a complete initial application were eligible for selection in the lottery. Using numbers generated from Random.org, each qualified City of Dallas business was put in an ordered list to submit complete documentation to a third-party provider prior to the execution of a grant or loan.

Through year-end 2020, 399 grants totaling $3,821,600 and 22 loans totaling $615,300 were approved under the SBCF program. More than $4.4 M in direct assistance was provided to 421 small businesses throughout the City of Dallas.

Details on the 2020 SBCF applications and awards can be found here.

Next Steps
If you were notified that your business was selected for funding, you will submit the required documents directly to NDC, the third-party administrator, via a secure online portal. You will need to provide NDC the business verification information as identified in this document. Additionally, there are two certifications that are required for federal CDBG requirements. The income self-certification form is a fillable pdf that you can either sign electronically or print and sign and then scan for submission. The job creation or retention form can be printed, filled out, and then scanned for submission. If you have questions about any of the required documents or need assistance, please reach out to SBCF@dallascityhall.com.