Loudoun County's COVID-19 Related Business Grants

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Just weeks into the pandemic crisis, the county dedicated $1.15 million to the initial round of the County’s COVID-19 business support program, paid out of the Commercial Business Incentive Fund, and the Economic Development Authority added $250,000. This was the first of its kind in the region and beat Congress to distributing funds to localities like ours. This business relief programs are among the most successful in the country for the speed in which the first rounds were executed, getting the money into hands of businesses that were in danger of closing indefinitely. The program has become a blueprint for similar programs in other municipalities, with department leadership frequently invited to national speaking opportunities and one-on-one advising sessions with counterparts across the country. Our Board of Supervisors invested nearly $12 million in CARES Act and local funds for the Business Interruption Fund and the Outdoor Seating Grant program to provide critical financial support to more than 2,000 of our small businesses, and later an additional $9 million in ARPA funds for the Hotel Relief Grant Fund and the Business Reinvestment and Recovery Grant. Our homegrown entrepreneurs responded to the pandemic with the creation of new innovative solutions and businesses in our “touch” economy showed remarkable resilience and creativity to shift business models.