Earlier this month, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California will receive $1.1 billion in funding from the U.S. Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative as part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. “California is home to the largest and most diverse small business community in the country,” according to the Governor. “We’re a state that’s driven by small business innovation and entrepreneurship–that’s why we’ve invested billions of dollars to help our businesses recover from the pandemic and to give more Californians a shot at the California Dream. Thanks to this funding, underrepresented and underserved business owners will have more access to the critical funding they need to be successful and thrive.”

Small business owners who want to find out if they qualify for this or any other type of business advice should contact the East Bay Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which focuses on advising small business clients located in Alameda and Contra Costa counties as part of the Northern California Small Business Development Center program. The organization’s mission is to help small businesses, usually defined as those with fewer than 500 employees, entrepreneurs, and startups. Thanks to support from the US Small Business Administration and others, the East Bay SBDC guides its clients to the resources they need to prosper–at no cost to the businesses.

Consulting, Training, and Referrals

“We provide services in all areas of businesses, so they can ask for services in accounting and financing, in marketing, operations, getting a loan, signing a lease, starting up, growing a company, or other areas,” says Executive Director Nancy Mangold, Ph.D. “Our advisors are very experienced advisors, and they can help with many different services.”

The SBDC for the East Bay used to be hosted elsewhere. The College of Business and Economics, California State University, East Bay took over hosting duties in 2022. Thus far, in its first nine months, the Hayward-based organization has helped 11 Tri-Valley companies get started and helped another 11 Tri-Valley companies obtain nearly $14 million in loans or investment. That includes an equity investment funding of $5 million for one life science company in the start-up stage and $7.6 million in SBA loans for a local hospitality company, according to Mangold, who is also Professor of Accounting at the College of Business and Economics.

The East Bay SBDC provides support tailored to each business. “The number one thing we do is confidential, no-cost, one-on-one consulting that is specific to a business owner's needs,” says Vincent McCoy, Director of the East Bay SBDC. When a business owner “brings a problem or they bring an opportunity to the table, our job is to help get them to some sort of successful conclusion to that, whether it be starting a business, getting a loan, or even, in some cases, deciding they shouldn't go into business.”

Offering training and receiving referrals to other resources are also important to clients. “We offer workshops nearly every weekday,” notes McCoy. In addition, “we connect businesses to people and organizations that can help them beyond what we might be able to do. If they need to understand how to get a license in the city, we can teach them. We show them how to find the right people to talk to or to find, such as a lender. We can help them have that conversation in a productive way.”

When it comes to funding, the East Bay SBDC has helped one company qualify for nearly $1 million in funding from the Emergency Injury Disaster Loan program. It also  helped three companies receive smaller amounts from the California Dream Fund, a one-time $35 million grant program that promotes entrepreneurship and small business creation with grants of up to $10,000 for qualified new businesses. “From $7 million to $5,000 is the range of how we help people,” according to McCoy. “They can be very small businesses starting up that need a little money to get them going or keep them going. And it can be larger developments such as a hospitality company where they need a large amount of money.”

Upcoming Programs

While financing can be critically important to many businesses and company founders, East Bay SBDC offers resources for a company at any stage as well as industry-specific help. “People sometimes think we're one and done,” says McCoy. “The reality is our goal is long-term relationships, to work with people long term from their startup phase or pre-startup phase to even when people want to sell a business. The idea is we can work with them through the lifespan of that business.”

It is not too late for local business owners to apply for California Shop Small, which starts on October 4, 2022. This new program is 100% free to qualifying businesses that have had minimal or no experience with online sales. The six-week program is part of a statewide project to train business owners in e-commerce. East Bay businesses that participate will be paired with Cal State East Bay students who will help build or improve the company’s website and marketing capabilities.

After six weeks, participants will have an online storefront, six months of no-cost website hosting, access to an eCommerce marketplace built specifically for small businesses, and “solid foundational, working knowledge of digital marketing best practice,” according to program officials. The new or improved websites will be launched in time for Small Business Day on November 26.

“Our goal is to have them ready by small business Saturday, which is a national event,” says McCoy. “Then, because they're up and running by the time Cyber Monday comes around and people are up on their computers shopping like crazy, they've got something to offer.”

The organization is conducting several programs for Alameda county. They include training programs for entrepreneurs interested in the food business. Training topics range from buying and starting a food business to food trucks to menu development to hospitality training to permits and design to equipment and operations. Early next year several other programs will be launched, including a digital marketing program to help business owners ramp up their marketing skills, a formal training program for startups, and a program that focuses on helping companies focused on growth.

“We have a lot of services,” says Mangold. “We just want the businesses to succeed in our area.” In 2021, the professor wrote the winning proposal for hosting East Bay SBDC services at Cal State East Bay. “It was heartbreaking to see how many businesses really suffered during the pandemic. At that time I was the Interim Dean of the College of Business and Economics. I had over 100 faculty in the College of Business and Economics with expertise in many areas of business, and 3,000 students. I just really wanted to use the expertise we had throughout the college to help businesses to recover from the pandemic and then to thrive and prosper in the future.”

Her plan seems to be working. “Overall in the East Bay region, just for the first nine months, we helped companies to achieve over $99 million in either equity or loan funding,” she notes. “We also helped the businesses to achieve over $24 million in increased sales. In the Northern California SBC Network, we have a dedicated finance program and centers with special advisors just on helping clients to get financing. That's why we can achieve these results.”

For more information about the East Bay Small Business Development Center, please visit www.eastbaysbdc.org.

To apply to California Shop Small, please visit www.eastbaysbdc.org/cashopsmall.

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash