Envolve Entrepreneurship’s Response to COVID-19

Humanity is facing an unprecedented pandemic. We are witnessing how these extraordinary times have taken us all by surprise and entrepreneurs and business owners are some of the hardest hit. At Envolve, we have asked ourselves a question that we’re happy to witness any other organizations and individuals have asked as well: What can we do to help and how can we engage our community in this response?  

We continue to advocate that entrepreneurs and business owners’ voices must be heard. That’s why we circulated a survey amongst our community to better understand how COVID directly affected them and their businesses. 98.8% of the small business owners who answered this particular question said their business was directly impacted by COVID-19. In addition, we realized that there were three issues that concerned the vast majority of responders: cash flow challenges (89%), lack of customers and sales (76%), and paying employees (67%). The Envolve Entrepreneurship USA team sent the survey responses and statistics to policy makers on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. This quick connection between policy makers to small business owners is of great importance to the entire ecosystem. The ability to establish such a partnership within a strict time frame, is an important characteristic that we believe sets us apart as an organization.

We are continuously collecting entrepreneurs’ experiences with COVID and the federal stimulus programs, so if you would like to add your experience and advocate for your business, please do so here. 

Continuing our partnership with the committee, the USA team hosted a Q&A conference call with Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship committee staff on March 26th. The conference call was held only a day after the CARES Act was passed by the Senate. We acted quickly to connect the Envolve community directly with the policy makers responsible for structuring this important bill and get them the information they needed to know about the small business relief programs.

On April 7th, our Board Member, Christopher Upperman, participated as a panelist on an “Entrepreneurs Navigating Through Constant Change” webinar hosted by AnitaB.org’s President and CEO Brena Darden Wilkerson. You can listen to the recording using this link, but we were honored to be mentioned in Brenda Wilkerson’s recent Forbes piece on why entrepreneurs will lead the economy’s $2.3 trillion post COVID-19 recovery! 

On April 8th, Christopher Upperman participated in the National Society of Black Engineers’ Virtual Town Hall on the CARES Act. On April 21st, he kicked off Trap Karaoke’s From Here Instagram Live series by discussing the economic importance of small and medium-owned sized businesses and sharing insights and tips on navigating these challenging times.  

On April 23rd, Facebook & Envolve Entrepreneurship hosted a free webinar to share more about Facebook’s $100M Small Business Grant Program. Diana Doukas, Manager of Economic Impact for the U.S. Policy Program at Facebook addressed the application requirements  and process, specifically for U.S. businesses that can receive $2,500 cash grants and $1,500 in ad credits. She also talked about Facebook’s long tradition of supporting small businesses, from training opportunities, e-learning curricula to partnerships with community colleges as well as new resources such as the fundraising tool and online gift cards to help support small businesses during COVID-19. To learn more, check out Facebook’s Business Resource Hub. 

As part of Concordia’s COVID-19 weekly webinar series, Christopher R. Upperman, Board Member of Envolve Entrepreneurship, interviewed Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ranking Member of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee, on the CARES Act and how it’s evolving to meet the needs of micro, small, and medium enterprises. Click here to access the recording as well as Concordia’s readout with a list of additional resources! 
 
We are proud to look back and acknowledge all of our responses so far in dealing with the COVID-19 situation. In the past month, we have engaged with parties and partners across all sectors. At Envolve Entrepreneurship, we’re always on the watch for the latest updates and we’ll keep on delivering resourceful and practical programs to our community. If you are interested in partnering with our organization to provide further support to entrepreneurs in Greece and the United States, please contact us!