2020 Small Business Stabilization Fund for Businesses Impacted by COVID-19



To support small businesses financially impacted by COVID-19, the City of Seattle provided 470 small businesses with $10,000 grants. In the first two rounds of the grant, the City supported 398 businesses through federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and raised an additional $720,000 in private funding to award an additional 72 small businesses in the third and final round.

OED received over 9,000 applications in March 2020 when the Stabilization Fund was launched. Because the need exceeded the available resources, the application process was not re-opened-instead, grantees for the second and third round were chosen by lottery from the original pool of eligible applicants. OED prioritized businesses located in areas of the city that are at risk of high-displacement and by applied a weighted lottery system to ensure the majority of applicants were located in those areas. With CDBG dollars and private donations, grants have supported 376 businesses in high displacement risk neighborhoods, and 94 in low-displacement risk neighborhoods. Additionally, over 70% of awardees were people of color.

Review the full list of Stabilization Fund awardees here.



Review our full data dashboard on the Stabilization Fund Awardees here.