Continuing To Support Small Businesses During COVID-19 #StoptheSpread

Ideas for supporting small businesses for consumers, small business owners, larger corporations, and civic leaders

As a former small business owner myself, I know that our local businesses will need a lot of support as we ask our fellow citizens and leaders to #stopthespread by practicing social distancing. Specifically, we need to help ensure that the small businesses that build the fabric of our communities are able to pull through to the other side of these trying times.

To this end, we consolidated a list of ideas that we think could drive impact immediately and are actionable for consumers, small business owners, larger corporations, and civic leaders.

If you are a consumer:

• Buy a gift card for later use, either through the company’s site directly, or use a provider like Give Local. This will help your local businesses maintain the cash flow they need to pay bills and salaries for their employees, even when they are on leave. If your local business doesn’t accept gift cards today, encourage them to use the resource below to set up that capability.
• Send a note of support to businesses you love, letting them know that you’ll be back as soon as the curve has flattened!
• Ask your city and state leaders to start a Small Business Resiliency Fund, if it doesn’t exist already (note: it probably doesn’t!)

If you are a Small Business Owner:

• Set up a gift card offering through a company like Square (it’s easier than you think), so that your customers can help you with cash flow (they want to!).
• Outside of gift cards, brainstorm other items, services, etc. that you could sell that might be “buy now, use later”.
• Continue to engage with your customer base through social avenues (facebook, instagram, whatsapp, etc.), share the ideas you generate above with them, as they would love to support you.
• Share openly what it will take to keep your business afloat during the weeks ahead, and ask for donations (no, they won’t be tax deductible, but hopefully they’ll be helpful!). We are a community, and getting help just means you can pay it forward next time.
• Check with your small business insurance agent to understand if there are insurance claims you can make for mandatory business shutdown due to the pandemic

If you are a Large Corporation:

• Deploy a portion of your marketing budget toward a shop small campaign promoting small business e-commerce
• Provide technical support to help local retailers be online capable if they are not already
• Extend payment terms for small business buyers. Specifically, do not charge any interest on outstanding balances and proactively let small business owners know that they can pay you once their business is back up and running.
• If you are a payment processor, waive processing fees for a period of time so that businesses are able to capture their full revenue potential for gift cards at a minimum, though I’d suggest all forms of payment processing, if possible.

If you are a Civic Leader:

• Set up a Small Business Resiliency Fund to help your local businesses get through what will be trying times. This will help them continue to pay workers, and letting them stay home as we aim to #stopthespread
• Delay when quarterly business taxes and annual licensing fees are due so that folks can utilize that cash flow to continue to keep their business afloat
• Encourage our federal government to provide easy access to relief funds to ensure that businesses have the capital they need now, especially if they need to shut their doors for 14+ days.
• Support banks in offering low interest small business loans for a period of time to help businesses stay afloat
• Encourage payment processing companies and others to waive processing fees for a period of time so that businesses are able to capture their full revenue potential.
• San Francisco has already instituted some pro-small business measures, and hopefully other cities will replicate this approach as quickly as possible, giving small business owners peace of mind.

I’ll continue to update this list as new resources and ideas come to light. If you have other ideas, please feel free to comment on this post and I’ll add them on as resources!

Please note, some of these ideas are aggregated from a number of sources, including:

• https://oewd.org/assistance-guidance-businesses-and-workers-impacted-covid-19
• https://sfosb.org/small-business-assistance-center
• https://sbdcmichigan.org/small-business-covid19/
• https://www.charlotteobserver.com/charlottefive/c5-things-to-do/article241172141.html

We’re committing to #LeadBoldly to #StoptheSpread of COVID-19. More than 900 (and counting) CEOs & leaders have added their name to the pledge, penned by our CEO and Co-Founder Rachel Carlson and Ken Chenault, Chairman & Managing Director of General Catalyst and former Chairman & CEO of American Express.

Read the letter and add your commitment.