Verizon’s Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program gives $10,000 small enterprise grants at sure occasions of the 12 months. Although the newest grant interval ended on Dec. 13, 2024, keep tuned for information on when a brand new spherical will open up in 2025. Even for those who don’t safe a grant, becoming a member of Digital Prepared and making the most of the instruments and sources this system gives is a great funding in your future. The true worth of Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared lies within the instruments and sources this system gives small companies to allow them to thrive in at the moment’s digital economic system.
Making use of for grants throughout open intervals is free and simple, however:
You probably have not but joined this system (additionally free and simple), you are able to do that right here.
After you’ve joined Digital Prepared, you’ll have to full any two of the numerous free programs or occasions this system gives, as soon as these grant packages open up.
Apply for the grants themselves through the utility interval. Keep tuned for when the following interval opens in 2025. Verizon will notify all candidates whether or not they’ve been chosen to obtain funding.
Whereas the monetary grants are one of the fashionable options of the Verizon program, the free programs, teaching periods and mentoring supplied by Digital Prepared can be found to anybody who has joined this system.
Register right here to get began.
To study extra about Digital Prepared, StartupNation spoke with Brianna Ellison, director of neighborhood 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 abilities coaching and sources
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
Access to a rigorously curated set of accountable mortgage choices and obtainable grant alternatives. Via Verizon’s Small Enterprise Funding Market, you’ll be able to see what funding choices chances are you’ll be eligible for and evaluate phrases to find out which financing choices could greatest meet your wants. When you discover a funding choice that you just’re excited by, join on to the lender to use.
However first it’s a must to register.
As Ellison explains, Verizon is actively partnering with Michigan small companies to assist them succeed within the digital economic system, together with:
Verizon has partnered with Grand Valley State College’s Veterans Entrepreneurship Lab to supply 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 sources.
Under is the total Q&A with Ellison, which StartupNation performed in September 2022.
What work is Verizon doing within the Detroit/Michigan neighborhood 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 plenty of thought management occasions with these organizations to share experience and sources with their membership.
In 2021, we prolonged a grant to Grand Valley State College’s Veterans Entrepreneurship Lab. Veterans and/or navy spouses work on their enterprise launch over a three-month interval. MVE-Lab equips contributors to establish their goal prospects, community with others, and discover the sources they should launch profitably and efficiently. It concludes with a Pitch Showcase awarding a minimum of $25,000 in prize cash. Company embody 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 numerous funding sources 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 crew has agreed to work immediately with these companies to establish further authorized companies.
Lastly, in September, Verizon launched Small Enterprise Digital Prepared. This on-line curriculum is designed to provide small companies the customized instruments to achieve at the moment’s digital world. This system consists of studying modules, knowledgeable teaching, peer networking and a market of instruments and options. The free on-line useful resource is obtainable 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.
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What do you imply by “Digital Prepared” and why is digital readiness vital for small enterprise house owners at the moment?
Digital readiness is about ensuring companies have all of the instruments and sources they should thrive in at the moment’s economic 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 prospects have elevated. To remain aggressive within the new financial setting, small companies have to be agile and adapt to shifting client 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 accordance with knowledge printed from Morning Seek the advice of and Verizon of their September 2020 report, “greater than two in 5 determination makers say it’s seemingly that their enterprise will develop by way of 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 can we bridge this hole? Entrepreneurs want quick access—wherever they’re—to customized studying and training sources to be able to efficiently implement digital methods into their companies and have the arrogance to achieve the post-pandemic future.
Why is the Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program useful resource for enterprise house owners in metro Detroit and Michigan?
Dwelling to numerous analysis organizations and anchor establishments, together with a vibrant and multicultural entrepreneurial ecosystem, Detroit’s wealthy roots embody the hardworking and progressive ethos of its various small enterprise house owners. Detroit has roughly 50k small companies owned by entrepreneurs of colour and the town is dedicated to making sure residents are gaining equal entry to academic and financial alternatives of the rising high-growth economic system. In accordance with a 2021 Detroit Ecosystem Evaluation, Detroit has 23% of all startup firms in Michigan and has all the obligatory sources to launch and develop companies which can be digital prepared. As Verizon seeks to attach BIPOC enterprise house owners throughout the nation with this beneficial useful resource and create extra equitable pathways for entrepreneurs to thrive within the digital economic system, we view the small enterprise house owners within the higher metro Detroit space—and Michigan—as a important consumer base within the effort.
Verizon’s Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program was constructed by (principally BIPOC) small companies for small companies. Jamiel Robinson, the manager director of Michigan-based enterprise improvement group, Grand Rapids Space Black Companies (GRABB), was a outstanding voice within the Small Enterprise Advisory Committee that helped form this system and its choices. Various subject material consultants drive our content material, interactive video modules, and training occasions. Briefly, entrepreneurs in metro Detroit can be outfitted with digital methods and related learnings—by way of curated curriculum subjects, teaching occasions, and neighborhood teams—to use to their companies!
What steering are the small enterprise house owners you’re employed with searching for?
We all know typically that small enterprise house owners are excited by studying extra about financing, digital advertising, and operational effectivity. Our customers have instructed us they’ve obtained large worth from the academic sources and in connecting immediately with consultants–by way of each one-on-one mentoring and group teaching occasions. Fifty-eight % of customers on the platform are excited by connecting with a finance knowledgeable and 64% of customers on the platform are excited by connecting with a advertising knowledgeable. The most well-liked subject areas are accessing capital, digital advertising, and bettering on-line presence. Enterprise house owners would additionally desire to be part of a neighborhood the place they’ll study from each other, as 52% of customers wish to join with friends with related pursuits.
How can Verizon assist with neighborhood networking on a private degree, not a digital one?
Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared is constructed to be a beneficial instrument to the BDOs, Small Enterprise Growth Facilities, CDFIs and different organizations which can be on the bottom serving to small companies day by day. We’re partnering carefully with a majority of these organizations and dealing with them to combine our sources into their choices. Small Enterprise Digital Prepared’s neighborhood part additionally lets companies join with different companies and sources by metropolis in order that they’ll connect with help of their native space!
On the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Verizon started the grassroots work of internet hosting digital neighborhood dialogues targeted on small companies in communities from throughout the state. The aim of those dialogues is to listen to in regards to the nice work small enterprise house owners and small enterprise improvement organizations are at present engaged in, the present and ongoing challenges small enterprise house owners are going through, and to debate how Verizon might 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 beneficial relationships with the communities we serve. These dialogues are solely the start of what we hope can be long-term partnerships the place we are able to proceed the dialog and discover future alternatives to be supportive.
What abilities do you deliver to the neighborhood as a liaison between Verizon and small enterprise house owners?
As a neighborhood 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 type coalitions to sort out the challenges small companies face, amplify successes and greatest practices, and disseminate details about Verizon instruments and sources. Reflexively, I meet with companies to hearken to their wants and drive the way in which wherein 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.
