On June 16, 2020, Gov. Tim Walz signed into law the Minnesota Small Business Relief Grants Program.
This program will make available $10,000 grants to Minnesotan owned and operated businesses that can demonstrate financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of $60.3 million is available for grant awards which will be selected through a computer-generated, randomized selection process.
Applications will be accepted by law for a 10-day period beginning Tuesday, June 23 through Thursday, July 2.
Grant funds received by individual businesses shall be used for working capital to support payroll expenses, rent, mortgage payments, utility bills, and other similar expenses that occur or have occurred since March 1, 2020, in the regular course of business. These are grants and no repayment will be required.
Eligibility
To qualify, an applicant must:
- Be a private for-profit business that has a permanent physical location in Minnesota.
- Be majority owned by a permanent resident of Minnesota.
- Be in good standing with the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Minnesota Department of Revenue as of March 1, 2020.
- Employ the equivalent of 50 or fewer full-time workers.
- Be able to demonstrate financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
- NOTE: Businesses that received funding under the Small Business Emergency Loan Program (SBEL) are NOT eligible for this program. (However, businesses that received funding through the various Small Business Administration emergency loan programs ARE still eligible for this program.)
In making awards, there are minimum set asides for various targeted groups and categories of businesses.
NOTE: The application is scheduled to go live on 6-23-20.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) will oversee the program.
Questions? Contact one of our experts at (888) 388-1040.
This was last updated on 6-22-20 at 5 pm.
