The Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Canadian Business Resilience Network, in collaboration with Salesforce, recently launched the Small Business Relief Fund, which will provide grants of $10,000 each to 62 small Canadian businesses in order to assist their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and support their resilience.
Businesses can use the grant funds to pay salaries, acquire safety and personal protective equipment for staff, replenish materials, and institute measures to adapt their business models to the economic impacts of the pandemic.
In order to be eligible for a grant, a business must:
- be a for-profit company
- belong to a chamber of commerce, board of trade, or association that is a member of the Canadian Business Resilience Network
- have 2-50 employees
- have been operational for at least 2 years as of March 1, 2020
- have an annual revenue between $150,000 and $5,000,000
- have been negatively affected by the pandemic
- meet the other eligibility criteria set out in the program’s terms and conditions
A small business can apply for a grant online from June 1, 2020, until 8:00 p.m. ET on June 12, 2020. The application must demonstrate how being a grant recipient would assist the business to recover from the pandemic and support its resilience.
The assessment of the application by the Canadian Business Resilience Network will be based on the following criteria:
- the business’s current financial situation
- how the business will use the grant to change or innovate
- how the change or innovation will sustain the business’s recovery and allow it to prosper
- role of the business in the community
The grant recipients will be announced in late June 2020. The funds are expected to be disbursed to the recipients shortly afterwards.
Grant recipients may be asked to provide a video or a written case study indicating how they used the grant funds. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Salesforce may share such information with the public.
For more information regarding the Small Business Relief Fund, please visit the Canadian Business Resilience Network website.
This blog post was written by Marina Abrosimov, a member of the Business Law team. Marina can be reached at 613-369-0363 or at marina.abrosimov@mannlawyers.com.
