In March 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, providing an opportunity for financial relief from the federal government. Two years later, federal funding has been put to use in many different ways.
Two California cities — Paramount and Antioch — began partnerships with integrated program administration solution provider FORWARD to help distribute grant funding to local small businesses in need of financial relief.
In Paramount, Calif., the partnership entailed distribution of funding of up to $20,000 per business. The program opened in August 2022 and closed in February 2023. Notably, more than 95 percent of businesses served were BIPOC-owned; 60 percent were women-owned.
The partnership enabled the platform to be embedded into the city’s website, making it easy for applicants to upload documents and saving both applicants and staff time, according to Paramount management analyst Sol Bejarano.
The technology allowed the city to customize programming to meet the community’s needs Bejarano said, noting that the availability of more than one language helped better support residents in what is a predominantly Hispanic community.
Although there are no plans to continue the program when the funding comes to a close, John Carver, assistant community development director for the city of Paramount, detailed how important this program has been for struggling businesses in the community — some of which were micro businesses that might not have sustained themselves without this funding.
“I believe it’s important to keep your business community running,” Bejarano said. “It’s an economic driving force.”
In Antioch, the partnership is enabling the city to distribute $1 million to local small businesses — $500,000 as small-business grants, and $500,000 allocated for facade upgrade reimbursements.
According to Kwame Reed, the city’s economic development director, the partnership with FORWARD has made it possible for a very small department — a team made up of only Reed for the majority of 2022 — to take on a project of this scale. As Reed put it, the platform acted almost as staff.
“It’s really important, I think, being in the public sector, [to find] good private partnership,” Reed said, underlining the role FORWARD’s team has played in helping get the platform running through regular meetings and support.
Reed said this platform also worked in collaboration with other technology the city uses to send emails and communications, helping to get information to businesses that this opportunity existed.
Because Antioch had used a grant portal to distribute funding from the CARES Act, Reed said a grant distribution portal was not a brand-new concept, but he underlined that the technology used for this program made the process seamless.
This program opened in February 2023. The city is currently reviewing applications for eligibility. The ARPA funds available to Antioch must be fully allocated by 2024 and fully spent by 2026, at which time the program will come to an end unless the city is able to obtain other sources of funding.
Meanwhile, in Phoenix, ARPA funding enabled the city to distribute $12 million to 1,000 families in the city in the Family Assistance Resource (FAR) program. The program started in January 2022 and wrapped at the end of February 2023.
To distribute this funding effectively, the city partnered with greater Phoenix’s regional smart city consortium, The Connective. The program involved providing a $1,000 monthly stipend to eligible families for 12 months to support basic household expenses like groceries, school supplies and transportation.
To distribute this funding, the city opted for a reloadable debit card solution, leveraging resources made possible through The Connective's City Possible membership, which include Usio/FiCentive MasterCards to help families access the funding.
“The tech piece is amazing … but this was just life-changing and so personal for all of these families,” Phoenix Special Projects Administrator Samantha Tavares said.
The idea was that this method would be simplest for families, and in addition, it would potentially expose people to a banking system and financial literacy learning opportunities that they had not experienced before, Tavares explained.
To activate the cards, FAR program participants download a mobile app that allows them to track spending. To make this method effective, the city worked with The Connective to help teach people how to navigate the application.
Tavares said the events held for this program included computer access as an alternative for those without access to Internet-enabled devices, but she said that participants had mobile phones they could use.
The city also had access to transactional data to tell the story of how the money was used, which Tavares said came down to food, housing expenses, transportation costs and child care.
Though the program recently closed, Tavares said it opened city officials’ eyes to the possibilities that exist for programs like this.
“I do wish we could do more, because people are still in need,” she said, detailing that the feedback event that was held demonstrated the program’s impact. “It was extremely powerful, because this program was life-changing for our residents.”
