LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

In approximately 200 words or less, summarize the program include the program description, the purpose and outcomes. Abstracts of award-winning programs will be published. Please be sure to provide clear and concise information as this section will be used publicly in whatever format it is submitted.At the direction of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the County’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs (DCBA), in partnership with the LA County Development Authority (LACDA), designed the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund (Recovery Fund), a public-private partnership to leverage public dollars to increase the amount of funding and resources available for nonprofits and small businesses. DCBA engaged the City of Los Angeles, philanthropy, and the private sector to grow the fund to $100 million dollars and fund pre-application technical assistance.The Recovery Fund embedded an equity lens to prioritize communities most impacted but least likely to access government programs. The equity lens included a departure from the first come, first serve model and considered a community’s poverty rate, educational attainment, unemployment, and pollution rate. In order to address concerns over access, eight local and trusted entities were engaged to provide pre-application support to all interested applicants. A total of 8,500 hours of TA were delivered in up to 15 languages.The Recovery Fund disbursed nearly $100 million in relief grants ranging from $5,000 to $100,000 to approximately 7,325 entities in the County of Los Angeles. Of these, 43% were women-owned entities, 80% were minority-owned, and 203 entities were veteran-owned.