Pasadena Business Centers

Wildfire relief

San Gabriel Valley City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

We have been frontline providing assistance to small businesses during the wildfires. The Pasadena Women's Business Center alongside our partner organization, the Small Business Development Center, is hosted at Pasadena City College. On Monday January 13th, our campus was turned into a Disaster Recovery Center where we immediately began seeing clients, documenting their stories, hearing their concerns, fears, and frustrations, and providing counseling on how to navigate the rebuild and recovery process. The Pasadena Women's Business Center (WBC) partnered with Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media Impact and GoFundMe.org to provide $1,025,000 in grants to 50 women-owned small businesses. As a result we received 400+ applications which allowed us to deeply understand the needs and recovery potential of small businesses in our area. We know the economic impact of small businesses in our community and we also know the devastation that will occur should we lose these businesses.

This grant will support the overall work of the Pasadena Women's Business Center (WBC) & Pasadena Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in addition to allowing us to create specialized programming for fire-impacted businesses. We noted that the greatest area of need for these businesses is to reimagine and pivot their business, replace inventory and equipment, increase capacity by understanding operations and financials, 1:1 guidance on getting documentation and paperwork in order (licenses, permits, insurance) and having access to personal development like coaching, accountability and therapeutic outlets. To address these issues, our program would entail (1) distributing micro-grants to businesses to purchase and replace equipment, (2) creating digital access through website revamps and creation as we saw a great need for businesses to pivot to robust online platforms (3) connecting them with PR and marketing professionals to create marketing strategies (4) creating a comprehensive strategic business plan for recovery.

Los Angeles simply cannot afford to lose the small business community. More specifically, the direct areas that we serve (San Gabriel Valley including Altadena and Pasadena) cannot afford to lose the small business community. For every $1 that a small business receives, there is $74 of impact on the local economy. In America, over 50% of people are employed by a small business and those businesses in turn are the people who sponsor little league teams and donate to school booster clubs. Opportunities are created, local economies are sustained. The success of the small business community is vital to the economic and cultural vitality of Los Angeles as a whole. Our organizations exist wholly because of the deep connection between healthy businesses and the economy. Our intention is to retain businesses that will otherwise be forced to shut down or relocate through wrap around services.