SSBCI funding should prove important to small businesses including start-ups
You may not have heard much about the acronym SSBCI in the past, but you are no doubt going to hear the five letters discussed more in the weeks and months ahead.
The acronym stands for the “State Small Business Credit Initiative,” and the program was originally funded in 2010 to help address the severe decline in small business lending that accompanied the Great Recession. Tennessee received just short of $30 million in funding.
SSBCI 2.0 was funded at $10 billion as part of the “American Rescue Plan Act” that Congress recently passed as part of the national response to the coronavirus pandemic-induced recession.
In its last weekly newsletter, the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI) made the following observation: “While the condition of the capital markets in 2020 is very different from their status in 2010, SSBCI, which is a flexible model for bolstering state-based efforts to address regional capital challenges, remains an appropriate mechanism to help address the current economic strife. However, the same may not be true of all of the 150+ programs approved by Treasury last time. The onus is on the states to identify the challenges and needs of their small business capital markets today and design appropriate plans to meet the moment.”
You can learn more about SSTI’s thoughts and recommendations on the topic, including access to a new report, here.
