Working Washington Round 4 offers grant relief funds to small for-profit businesses, especially those that were required to close due to public health and safety measures.
Priorities for funding are:
- For-profit small businesses in industries that have hard costs associated with their operations, and faced the most significant challenges to paying those hard costs because they were required to close.
- Businesses with lost revenue as a result of closure.
- Hard costs include but are not limited to rent, utilities, payroll or personal protective equipment. Eligible businesses must operate from a brick-and-mortar location that is separate from their home.
- Businesses with added expenses to maintain safe operations. (For example: Creating an outdoor eating area, putting in barriers between tables, the costs to build an online storefront, adding delivery, and more)
- Equitable distribution of grant funds across the state and to businesses owned and operated by historically disadvantaged individuals.
Some criteria outline in legislation is:
- Businesses must apply the grant award toward expenses incurred between March 1, 2020 through June 30th, 2021.
- Commerce must take into account previous Working Washington awards distributed by the agency or affiliated partners. This means grant awards will vary. The maximum grant award will be $25,000.
- Grants must be equitably distributed statewide and to historically underserved and disadvantaged populations