The Small Business Administration Delaware is offering new training to help Black-owned small businesses with their COVID recovery.
SBA Delaware is launching a quarterly virtual training series in conjunction with Black History Month. The series will introduce members of the Delaware Black Chamber of Commerce to the SBA’s financing and federal government programs.
The series is free, and the goal is to stoke growth and COVID-19 recovery by increasing Black-owned Delaware small businesses' access to those programs
SBA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator John Fleming said many minority-owned small businesses missed out on previous financial assistance during the pandemic for multiple possible reasons.
"We found that it was more difficult for actually Black and Hispanic owned businesses to access our programs for a variety of reasons. It could be maybe they tend to be on the smaller side didn't have enough staff, adequate staff to go ahead and research some of these programs. Maybe a lot of them are what we call unbanked, they don't have a relationship with a lender," said Fleming.
Businesses can sign up for the training series online.
"You can sign up online at sba.gov. We have an Eventbrite link there where you can go in and sign up, and they can participate and that will be taught directly. It won't be a national webinar it'll be a smaller group and targeting businesses here in Delaware," said Fleming.
The training series starts on February 16.
