The Sacramento Employment and Training Agency has approved $750,000 in grant funds for programs supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs in the region.
The funding is through a statewide California Workforce Development Board program called “Slingshot,” to help spur innovation and employment statewide.
The funds in each region of the state are handled by workforce development boards.
Meg Arnold, managing director of Valley Vision, the local organization contracted by SETA to help manage the program, said it’s the latest example of locally sourced funding benefiting small businesses and entrepreneurs. In November, the Sacramento City Council approved $970,000 in Rapid Acceleration, Innovation and Leadership in Sacramento (RAILS) grant funds to benefit entrepreneurs and various projects.
“This is a great step forward for the region,” Arnold told the Business Journal.
According to Valley Vision’s website, the program is also designed to engage underrepresented groups or geographic areas, and show a commitment to collaboration in the region’s entrepreneurial sector.
Evaluation teams looked at 17 proposals in areas of business mentorship, maker space/incubators and web-based e-resource databases.
Awardees who received grants include:
- Sacramento Metro Chamber, $125,000, for its Capital Region Small Business Development Center
- California Capital, $100,000, to host mentoring matchmaking events and serve small businesses and entrepreneurs
- Glenn County, $100,000, for a project to strengthen business mentoring
- Hacker Lab, $125,000, to establish a Capital Region Makerspace Network, according to a Hacker Lab news release
- CSUS University Enterprises Inc., $82,498
- Center For Land-Based Learning in Yolo County, $91,844 to develop and expand support services for farmers
- AgTech Innovation Alliance in Yolo County, $75,658 to serve the local agricultural technology community
- I/O Labs and Fullstack Labs, $50,000, to create an online tool to aggregate information on resources that support small businesses in the region. The effort is in conjunction with Code for Sacramento.
Source: Sacramento Business Journal