$10K Verizon Grants and Other Free Benefits for Entrepreneurs

The most recent spherical of funding from Verizon’s Small Enterprise Digital Prepared grant program is coming to an in depth.

Totaling $1 million on this spherical alone, the $10,000 grant program is likely one of the hottest options of Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared. However the grants are just one good thing about a program designed particularly to assist small companies by offering digital expertise coaching, from programs, to stay teaching periods, to customized studying plans. 

This system is free to hitch.  However the final day to use is Dec. 20.

To be eligible to use for a Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared Grant, companies will need to have an account on Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared and fulfill different necessities equivalent to finishing any mixture of two programs, teaching occasions, or digital group occasions on the platform.

Register right here to get began.

To be taught extra about this system, go right here or learn the beneath interview with Brianna Ellison, director of group engagement for Verizon. Ellison elaborates on the work Verizon is doing to assist entrepreneurs and on the advantages of the Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program, together with:

Entry to free digital expertise coaching and assets
Monetary help to help digital transformation initiatives
Alternatives to community with different small enterprise house owners and consultants
Entry to help from Verizon and its companions

As Ellison explains, Verizon is actively partnering with Michigan small companies to assist them succeed within the digital financial system, together with:

Verizon has partnered with Grand Valley State College’s Veterans Entrepreneurship Lab to offer grants and help to veteran entrepreneurs.
Verizon has partnered with the Metro Detroit Black Enterprise Alliance’s Capital Join Program to assist Black-owned companies entry funding and assets.

Under is the total Q&A with Ellison, which StartupNation performed in September 2022. 

What work is Verizon doing within the Detroit/Michigan group to assist small companies?

Verizon has actively partnered with Michigan small companies. We’re members of quite a few chambers of commerce and associations from throughout the state that work with small companies (such because the Detroit Regional Chamber, Grand Rapids Chamber, Dearborn Chamber, The Proper Place, MI Chamber, Automation Alley, Metro Detroit Black Enterprise Alliance, MI Enterprise Incubator Assoc.). Verizon participates in numerous thought management occasions with these organizations to share experience and assets with their membership.

In 2021, we prolonged a grant to Grand Valley State College’s Veterans Entrepreneurship Lab. Veterans and/or army spouses work on their enterprise launch over a three-month interval. MVE-Lab equips members to establish their goal clients, community with others, and discover the assets they should launch profitably and efficiently. It concludes with a Pitch Showcase awarding at the very least $25,000 in prize cash. Friends embrace different veteran entrepreneurs, mentors, and consultants like attorneys and advertising specialists, together with the chief of Verizon’s veteran worker useful resource group who shared details about Verizon help for small enterprise house owners alongside along with his personal private expertise as an entrepreneur.

In 2021, we additionally established a partnership between Verizon’s Professional Bono Program and the Metro Detroit Black Enterprise Alliance’s Capital Join Program. This program is getting ready and connecting Metro Detroit Black-owned companies to varied funding assets to make sure their sustained success. If any of those companies want additional authorized help or one-on-one help, the Verizon Professional Bono Program group has agreed to work instantly with these companies to establish further authorized providers.

Lastly, in September, Verizon launched Small Enterprise Digital Prepared.  This on-line curriculum is designed to offer small companies the customized instruments to reach immediately’s digital world. This system contains studying modules, skilled teaching, peer networking and a market of instruments and options.  The free on-line useful resource is accessible to any small enterprise throughout Michigan (and nationwide) and can be utilized by Verizon companions such because the Black Enterprise Alliance’s Capital Join Program.

What do you imply by “Digital Prepared” and why is digital readiness vital for small enterprise house owners immediately?

Digital readiness is about ensuring companies have all of the instruments and assets they should thrive in immediately’s financial system. The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed unexpected challenges on entrepreneurs and additional accelerated a shift to digital methods of working.  Greater than 75% of small companies pivoted their operations as a result of disaster and greater than 50% of SMBs say their on-line interactions with clients have elevated. To remain aggressive within the new financial surroundings, small companies should be agile and adapt to shifting shopper preferences.

Small enterprise entrepreneurs perceive the significance of using digital instruments of their day-to-day operations, however discover it difficult to implement significant digital transformation. In keeping with information printed from Morning Seek the advice of and Verizon of their September 2020 report, “greater than two in 5 choice makers say it’s possible that their enterprise will broaden by digital applied sciences and rely extra closely on communications.” On the similar time, greater than two-thirds of respondents acknowledged that including or transitioning to digital/on-line operations has been difficult for his or her enterprise to deal with. How will we bridge this hole? Entrepreneurs want easy accessibility—wherever they’re—to customized studying and training assets in an effort to efficiently implement digital methods into their companies and have the boldness to reach the post-pandemic future.

Why is the Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program an excellent useful resource for enterprise house owners in metro Detroit and Michigan?

House to varied analysis organizations and anchor establishments, together with a vibrant and multicultural entrepreneurial ecosystem, Detroit’s wealthy roots embody the hardworking and modern ethos of its numerous small enterprise house owners. Detroit has roughly 50k small companies owned by entrepreneurs of colour and town is dedicated to making sure residents are gaining equal entry to instructional and financial alternatives of the rising high-growth financial system. In keeping with a 2021 Detroit Ecosystem Evaluation, Detroit has 23% of all startup corporations in Michigan and has all the mandatory assets to launch and develop companies which can be digital prepared. As Verizon seeks to attach BIPOC enterprise house owners throughout the nation with this useful useful resource and create extra equitable pathways for entrepreneurs to thrive within the digital financial system, we view the small enterprise house owners within the better metro Detroit space—and Michigan—as a important person base within the effort.

Verizon’s Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program was constructed by (principally BIPOC) small companies for small companies. Jamiel Robinson, the chief director of Michigan-based enterprise improvement group, Grand Rapids Space Black Companies (GRABB), was a distinguished voice within the Small Enterprise Advisory Committee that helped form this system and its choices. Numerous subject material consultants drive our content material, interactive video modules, and training occasions. In brief, entrepreneurs in metro Detroit can be geared up with digital methods and related learnings—by curated curriculum subjects, teaching occasions, and group teams—to use to their companies!

What steering are the small enterprise house owners you’re employed with in search of?

We all know typically that small enterprise house owners are inquisitive about studying extra about financing, digital advertising, and operational effectivity.  Our customers have instructed us they’ve obtained great worth from the academic assets and in connecting instantly with consultants–by each one-on-one mentoring and group teaching occasions. Fifty-eight % of customers on the platform are inquisitive about connecting with a finance skilled and 64% of customers on the platform are inquisitive about connecting with a advertising skilled. The preferred matter areas are accessing capital, digital advertising, and bettering on-line presence. Enterprise house owners would additionally desire to be part of a group the place they will be taught from each other, as 52% of customers need to join with friends with comparable pursuits.

How can Verizon assist with group networking on a private stage, not a digital one?

Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared is constructed to be a useful software to the BDOs, Small Enterprise Growth Facilities, CDFIs and different organizations which can be on the bottom serving to small companies each day.  We’re partnering carefully with some of these organizations and dealing with them to combine our assets into their choices. Small Enterprise Digital Prepared’s group part additionally lets companies join with different companies and assets by metropolis in order that they will hook up with help of their native space!

On the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Verizon started the grassroots work of internet hosting digital group dialogues centered on small companies in communities from throughout the state. The aim of those dialogues is to listen to concerning the nice work small enterprise house owners and small enterprise improvement organizations are presently engaged in, the present and ongoing challenges small enterprise house owners are dealing with, and to debate how Verizon will be supportive transferring ahead. Attendees have included small enterprise house owners, small enterprise help organizations and chambers of commerce.

Now greater than ever, we at Verizon will proceed to construct on the extremely useful relationships with the communities we serve. These dialogues are solely the start of what we hope can be long-term partnerships the place we will proceed the dialog and discover future alternatives to be supportive.

What expertise do you carry to the group as a liaison between Verizon and small enterprise house owners?

As an area liaison between Verizon and small enterprise house owners, I work to construct bridges of reference to my friends, inside enterprise companions and exterior stakeholders to champion insurance policies that enrich lives and allow a digital future that serves all Michigan communities. I’m able to leverage relationships inside Verizon and with enterprise help group companions to kind coalitions to sort out the challenges small companies face, amplify successes and greatest practices, and disseminate details about Verizon instruments and assets. Reflexively, I meet with companies to take heed to their wants and drive the best way through which we deposit goodwill in our native communities and innovate to construct the networks that transfer the world ahead for everybody.

Q&A initially printed in September 2022.

Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared: A free useful resource for studying primary enterprise expertise, grants, the most recent digital know-how and extra.