Even as small businesses in New York City are applying for COVID-19 relief funding in record numbers, many are pivoting to adapt their business models to respond directly to the urgent needs in the city, a data analysis from the Citizens Committee for New York City finds. 

The analysis, Neighborhood business grant applications: Who applied for funding? (13 pages, PDF), found that the organization's new citywide Neighborhood Business Grants program received nearly seven hundred applications in one month, with nearly half of the applicants concentrated in five sectors: education and child care (10 percent), local restaurants (10 percent), retail (9 percent), wellness and beauty services (9 percent), and the arts (6 percent). According to the organization, many applicants reported pivoting their business models to keep the delivery of essential services going, with, for example, day camps and restaurants donating food to frontline workers and retail stores switching to the making of face masks. The data also showed that 96 percent of the applications were from businesses with ten or fewer employees; nearly two-thirds were from first- or second-generation immigrant entrepreneurs; and that more than half were from women-owned businesses and nearly 10 percent from partly women-owned businesses. The majority of applicants identified as a person of color, with African-American women accounting for nearly a quarter of all applicants.

Founded forty-five years ago to address needs created by the city's 1970s-era financial crisis, the organization has provided nearly $1.2 million in direct cash grants to more than four hundred projects in 2020, impacting nearly ninety thousand residents in a hundred and twenty-two neighborhoods across the city's five boroughs.

"We've seen how the citizens of this city continue to fill in the gaps, often where federal and state institutions fall short," said Citizens Committee CEO Rahsaan Harris. "We are a village of small business owners, activists, artists, and community gatekeepers improving New York City neighborhoods, and in this moment of crisis we believe we as a city must trust grassroots leaders, support them and give them the right platforms to thrive." 

(Photo credit: Katie Haugland Bowen)