The City of Terre Haute Small Business Grant Program was developed to provide financial support for small businesses in the City of Terre Haute to respond to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and to increase the economic health of the area. Understanding many small businesses and nonprofits are still healing economically from the pandemic, or growth was stalled due to the pandemic, the city wants to positively impact their ability to stabilize and ultimately grow. The program also focuses on multiple pillars of the See You In Terre Haute Community Plan, including economic development, quality of life, and talent attraction and retention. These grants are intended to help small businesses grow, support business recovery, and increase the overall resiliency of local businesses in the City of Terre Haute.
Grant awards will be made up to a maximum of $100,000 and a minimum of $10,000. Grant amounts will be based on supporting the applicant’s goal in their application. Awardees will have 24 months to complete projects.
Early deadline is May 16, 2024 at 5:00 pm with the final deadline of June 27, 2024 at 5:00 pm.
Grant Program Goals
- Retain existing businesses and employees
- Increase revenue and employees
Eligibility of Applicants
- Business location must be based in the city of Terre Haute limits – City of Terre Haute limits map
- 75 or fewer full-time employees
- Locally owned and operated – this includes franchised businesses
- Business cannot be a subsidiary of a larger corporation
- Publicly traded companies are not eligible
- Must have been in operation in the city of Terre Haute since March 2022 and must still be in operation.
- Applicant business must be registered and in good standing with Indiana Secretary of State as a Business Entity, or if a sole proprietorship have a certificate of assumed business name or doing-business- as (DBA) form record from the County Recorder.
- Must disclose information on any pending litigation or legal actions
- Businesses must not be debarred, suspended, or otherwise excluded from or ineligible for participation in Federal assistance programs as noted in the attached SBA ineligible loan link (not eligible for SBA loans).
Eligible Use of Funds
Capital expenditures
Examples include equipment and technology.
Infrastructure
Examples include business façade and improvements, renovations, major repairs, expansion (including down payment for building purchase). Preference given to owned buildings and those who use local contractors
Business planning, technical or service provider assistance.
An example includes utilizing an accounting service to help convert business to Quickbooks, or the set-up/implementation of a point of sale system.
Marketing as included in budget with other items to grow expansion
Employee attraction – signing bonus
Workforce development – training
Ineligible Use of Funds
- Debt payments
- Lease payments
- Employee salary and benefits
- Utilities
- Insurance
- Outside business expenses including personal use
Project Qualification Survey
As the first step, each applicant will complete a Project Qualification Survey outlining their basic funding request and business basics and provide Business Eligibility documents. This entry will be done in an open survey utilizing Survey Monkey as an easy way for businesses to apply.
Review of these documents will determine whether or not a business is eligible to apply for funding. The answers to these questions will not be evaluated based on their response, but rather to ensure that answers align with the goals of the funding and that the business qualifies to fully apply. This will help potential applicants avoid developing lengthy proposals which are not competitive. It will also potentially reduce the number of applicants submitting full proposals to a manageable size for thorough review.
If the Project Qualification Survey doesn’t align with eligible funding opportunities, varies significantly from the grant purpose and outcomes, or if any of the requested Business Eligibility documents are not available and submitted, the applying business will not be allowed to submit a full application and will be removed from the process and notified of the decision.
There will be two rounds of review for Project Qualification and Business Eligibility. Early deadline is May 16, 2024 at 5:00 pm with the final deadline of June 27, 2024 at 5:00 pm. All businesses only need to apply once by the final deadline. Those that are deemed ineligible after the first review are able to resubmit by the final deadline if their project can be revised or they can remedy disqualification issues.
The Project Qualification Survey does not allow you to save and return to your work. The word document of the survey has been provided to allow you to formulate your responses before working to submit them in the survey.
The United Way of the Wabash Valley, the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, and the Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC) will be hosting three meetings for potential applicants to provide guidance on the grant program and application. The meetings will be at The Hub at 900 Wabash Ave. on April 17th at 2:00 pm, May 1st at 8:30 am and May 9th at 6:00 pm.
For information on the full grant process visit the full grant details below.
Contact United Way of the Wabash Valley if you have any questions at 812-235-6287 or [email protected].
