The Racial Equity Supply Chain Grant Program

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PROGRAM OVERVIEW

This is a low volume, and potentially multi-year grant designed to help mid-sized companies break into the Supply Chain by providing recoverable grants that will allow those companies to remediate deficiencies preventing them from being awarded larger contracts. The funding will take place in two draws. Both draws will be directly to the customer, and each will be for 50% of the total grant.

Eligibility

Eligible Businesses

Applications will be prioritized based on the following business demographics for grant consideration:

1. Applicant is referred to the Initiative by a participating contributory company (“Donors”);

2. Applicant is incorporated and/or operates in priority city (i.e., Chicago, Houston, Dallas, New York City, and Los Angeles);

3. Applicant has annual revenue above $5 million and below $10 million;

4. Applicant is within an underserved and disadvantaged market, with an emphasis on Black, Latino, and Hispanic owned businesses;

5. Applicant is a minimum of 10 years in business, and should submit the number of full-time employees they have as part of the grant application submission process;

6. Applicant has demonstrated need for resources (See Eligible Uses of Funds);

7. Applicant can formally attest and provide evidence indicating a pending contract from applicant’s client/customer is available for award, dependent on the remediation of the identified gap(s); and

8. Applicant provides formal documentation in the form of quote, invoice, or estimate of the expense that justifies the grant amount.

Ineligible Businesses

Ineligible business description for grant consideration includes:

1. Annual revenue below $5 million or above $10 million; and

2. Grant utilized for fixed assets, mobility, payroll, sales and marketing, or debt consolidation.

Eligible Uses Of Funds:

Recoverable Grant can be utilized for the following:

1. Technology Cyber/Network remediation

2. Operational Control enhancements (i.e., disaster recovery/business continuity)

3. Increases to Insurance, and/or Bonding coverage (cyber, surety/performance, etc.)

4. MBE/MWBE Certification (up to $5000)

Eligible Recoverable Grant Amounts:

1. Target recoverable grant amount per applicant not to exceed $200,000.

2. Recoverable grants will be awarded to businesses that serve an LMI Community(ies) or whose
end beneficiary is an LMI individual(s).

3. Applicant will not be awarded more than one grant during the Grant Term.

4. Rejected applicants are eligible to reapply and receive a grant in the succeeding application
period.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS

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Grant Application

Basic information about the business; could also include disclosure questions/certifications

Purpose: To gather situs/legal/mailing address and contact information, complete schedule of ownership, EINs, industry info, employee count, and any other data needed to provide a high level view of the applicant that we can refer to for validation.

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Application Certification/Attestation

Upfront Certification where borrower attests to have completed the application honestly and understands the requirements of funding and recoverability

Purpose: This will be doubly certified through the Grantee Docs when the file is Clear to Close (CTC) but the customer is acknowledging upfront that they understand the grant requirements. Each individual clause in the Attestation must be initialed.

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Goverment-Issued ID

Unexpired identification

Purpose: This would be for the person signing on behalf of the grantee. It is a KYC point and should be an officer of the corporation or 20%+ owner of the company. On an exception basis, a person identified by Corporate Resolution as being authorized to sign on behalf of the company. ID validation needs to be completed on this person.

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Diversity Certification

MBE or MWBE Certification

Purpose: This is to check whether the grantee is part of the target audience/funding priorities of the client. Where a customer has this, it should be uploaded as an MRD. Where they do not, they are allowed to use up to $5000 of the grant award toward getting such certification, and said certification must be added as a post-funding condition if the customer has disclosed that they intend to use funds to obtain certification.

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Proof of Business Organization

One or more of the following:

1) Articles of Inc

2) Articles of Org

3) Business License

4) FBN

Purpose: Corporations, LLCs, and LPs should provide
their Articles. Sole Props should provide a valid business license and/or FBN. This is to validate that the grantee is substantially in compliance with the laws of the state in which they are incorporated and that they are a legitimate, operating company. SOS deficiencies are NOT a barrier to funding BUT will be a condition of second disbursement and must be cured to ACTIVE–includes correcting foreign corp status.

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Proof of Location and Operation

Banking Validation–PLAID or Dlogic
Asset Report

Purpose: Banking validation against their operations account will provide evidence that the business is cycling income and expenses in a manner consistent with their industry and revenues. Where banking shows business address inconsistent with application and/or tax returns, steps should be taken to make sure we have a correct and current physical business address and notes added to the file.

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Proof of revenues

Two years full and complete, unaltered tax returns will all schedules and statements

Purpose: 2019 and 2020 at a minimum, but 2021 is acceptable if filed. Tax returns will be validated against Schedule of Ownership and application details as part of a KYC process to underwrite location, owners, stated revenue, industry/NAICS, EIN, employee counts, and any other relevant information.

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Proof of Employment count

Two years W3s or Federal Form 940

Purpose: Validate against stated employee count and compared to wages/comp to officers on tax returns for reasonability.

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8821S

Verification of Tax Returns

Purpose: Signed 8821s will be processed by Tax Guard. Validate against the W3s and Tax Returns, and check to see if there are any federal taxes NOT in repayment to the IRS. Where Federal dollars are in formal repayment, the file must be unqualified. The customer can get into repayment with the IRS and reapply in a future Round.

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Proof of Business Need

1) Tangible contract opportunity

2) PO/quote/invoice/cost verification
supporting barrier to entry

Purpose: This is pivotal in that we want to ensure, as much as possible, that funding will result in a contract award. The grantee should be able to demonstrate they’re on deck for the award (or at least a short list of awardees) and also that the barrier to the award is financial in nature. Contact with the contractor can help us identify that any other barriers to the award are manageable by the grantee, or fundable via
the grant. The generalized way to explain Proof of business need with reasonable supporting documents and/or attestation is:

1. Small Business has X coverage. A customer is asking them to have Y coverage. This can be evidenced by the applicant by providing a requirements document from their customer, or a copy of the bid package they are being asked to respond to, which confirms the gap they are trying to remediate.

2. Included could be a quote or invoice to get the difference in coverage is $XXk.
They could even submit an attestation letter from their customer/prospect customer stating the applicant needs this extra coverage to be considered for the award, or if they have a Letter of Intent document from customer stating – meet these extra requirements, and the supply contract is yours.

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Need Help?

Contact Our Call Center:
888-984-1173

Call center hours:
Monday – Friday
7:00 AM – 7:00 PM PST

The call center will be closed on January 17th for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and February 21st for Presidents Day.