The Uncertain Road to Recovery
Overview
Since 2019, each year CSBDF has released an analysis of the economic impacts of its small business lending. These reports detail the scope of CSBDF’s lending activities, estimate the broader economic impacts of these interventions, and highlight the importance of CSBDF, and CDFIs more broadly, in community economic development.
This report demonstrates the economic impacts of CSBDF’s lending and grantmaking activities during its 2023 fiscal year (July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023). In FY23, CSBDF provided 95 loans and 570 grant awards to startups and existing small businesses across North Carolina.
While delivering funding to small businesses has been found to positively impact local and regional economies, interventions during times of crisis – such as the Covid-19 pandemic – provide essential funds that can make the difference between firm survival and failure. Furthermore, small businesses that receive loans and grants during and after periods of crisis can play crucial roles in economic recovery efforts
While numerous scholars and development practitioners have evaluated the impacts of loans upon small businesses and their communities, thus far there is little data available regarding the effects of grants to small businesses. Because this report analyzes the economic impacts of grant programs administered by CSBDF on behalf of the City of Raleigh and the North Carolina Department of Administration, it demonstrates the value of grantmaking during periods of crisis for at-risk small businesses, their communities, and local and regional economies. In addition, this report underscores CSBDF’s commitment to systematically collecting client data, rigorously analyzing its impacts, and sharing results with a wide range of diverse audiences.
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