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Small Business Recovery & Growth Fund

Hurricane Ian was one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the United States. The powerful storm has caused widespread damage to small business owners across the state. Your donation to our foundation will help power our recovery efforts in hard-hit communities.

How we’re helping small businesses recover

We are the state’s principal provider of small business assistance and serve as part of the state’s emergency support function (ESF-18) for business and industry. In this capacity, we help small businesses prepare for and recover from disasters.

Since the storm impacted our state, we have been hard at work coordinating recovery efforts and providing support to small businesses in applying for disaster loans.

In partnership with the SBA and state and local officials, we are working to open business recovery centers (BRCs) in hard-hit communities of the state, where impacted business owners can come for in-person assistance in understanding and applying for state and federal disaster loans.

We have deployed our mobile assistance centers (MACs) – our fleet of recovery vehicles – into hard-hit communities to establish BRCs where physical facilities are not easily available. Our MACs also support recovery efforts in rural communities and are also used in blue sky days to expand our mission in underserved communities.

In these locations, our teams are working around the clock to provide recovery assistance to small businesses impacted by Hurricane Ian. In many cases, they have put aside their personal losses to prioritize small business owner’s recovery.

How your donation will be used

The human capital to staff BRCs and deploy our fleet of mobile assistance centers comes at an enormous expense.

Due to the widespread damages and nature of the storm, recovery efforts from Hurricane Ian will take months – if not years.

Your donation will help us keep our MACs in the field for as long as possible and support long-term recovery efforts for small businesses following Hurricane Ian.

Send your donation

Our network’s foundation, the Florida Small Business Development Foundation, Inc. is able to facilitate donations at this time. Donation checks can be made to:

Florida Small Business Development Foundation, Inc. (ATTN: Bridget LaCoste),

220 W Garden St, Suite 302

Pensacola, FL 32502.

More information

For questions and more information, please contact Bridget LaCoste, stakeholder relations and events manager, at blacoste@uwf.edu.