SCCC wins $500,000 grant to help small minority firms rebound from COVID

Suffolk County Community College has won a $500,000 grant to help small businesses that are owned by members of minority groups to recover from the pandemic, officials said on Wednesday.

The college’s Entrepreneurial Assistance Center is among 50 groups nationwide to share in $25 million from the banking giant Citigroup.

The grant funds "will support our continued work in providing technical assistance to Suffolk County’s small businesses — owned by people of color — that have been disproportionately impacted by the unprecedented health, social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic," said the center’s director, Daphne Gordon.

She said the grant money will be used to teach minority entrepreneurs "lasting business and problem-solving skills that will enable [them] to successfully manage and grow their businesses, and generate tangible results."

The college’s foundation applied for the grant from Citigroup, responding to its request for proposals earlier this year.

Brandee McHale, head of community investing and development at the bank and president of the Citi Foundation, said it was responding to the heavy blow that the pandemic delivered to minority-owned firms.

Black-owned businesses have closed at more than twice the rate of white-owned businesses in the past year, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is best known for tracking economic expansions and recessions.

The bureau also found that black-owned companies had the most significant drop in sales during the pandemic.

"By providing these [small business assistance centers] the flexible support they need to further their work, the Citi Foundation is helping to empower the recovery and rebuilding of stronger and more equitable communities across the United States," McHale said on Wednesday.

The Citi grant comes after the center, based at SCCC's Brentwood campus, was named the best of the state’s 24 Entrepreneurial Assistance Centers in 2018 and 2019. Long Island's other EAC is at Hofstra University.

Among the other grantees, only the Business Outreach Center Network, based in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, has ties to the Island.

The BOC Network provides virtual workshops, counseling sessions and help in accessing capital to minority-owned businesses in the city and in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Thirteen organizations in New York State won Citi grants, each for $500,000. Only California had more winners.

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.