The Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared Grant program is now open for functions for its newest spherical of funding, totaling $1 million.

The $10,000 grant program is among 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 succeed by offering digital expertise coaching from programs, to reside teaching periods, to personalised studying plans. 

Better of all, this system is free to hitch. 

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

Register right here to get began.

To study extra about this system, go right here or learn the beneath interview 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 expertise coaching and assets
• Monetary help to help digital transformation initiatives
• Alternatives to community with different small enterprise house owners and specialists
• 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 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 assets.

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

1. 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 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 navy spouses work on their enterprise launch over a three-month interval. MVE-Lab equips members to determine 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. Company embrace different veteran entrepreneurs, mentors, and specialists 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 together 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 making 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 workforce has agreed to work immediately with these companies to determine extra authorized providers.

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

2. What do you imply by “Digital Prepared” and why is digital readiness vital for small enterprise house owners in the present day?

Digital readiness is about ensuring companies have all of the instruments and assets they should thrive in in the present day’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 setting, 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 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 broaden via digital applied sciences and rely extra closely on communications.” On the identical 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 personalised studying and training assets as a way to efficiently implement digital methods into their companies and have the arrogance to reach the post-pandemic future.

3. Why is the Verizon Small Enterprise Digital Prepared program 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 progressive ethos of its numerous small enterprise house owners. Detroit has roughly 50k small companies owned by entrepreneurs of shade 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 accordance with a 2021 Detroit Ecosystem Evaluation, Detroit has 23% of all startup firms in Michigan and has all the crucial assets to launch and develop companies which are digital prepared. As Verizon seeks to attach BIPOC enterprise house owners throughout the nation with this invaluable 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 higher metro Detroit space—and Michigan—as a essential 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 chief 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 specialists drive our content material, interactive video modules, and training occasions. Briefly, entrepreneurs in metro Detroit will likely be outfitted with digital methods and related learnings—via curated curriculum matters, teaching occasions, and neighborhood teams—to use to their companies!

4. What steering are the small enterprise house owners you’re employed with searching for?

We all know typically that small enterprise house owners are serious about studying extra about financing, digital advertising, and operational effectivity.  Our customers have advised us they’ve obtained super worth from the academic assets and in connecting immediately with specialists–via each one-on-one mentoring and group teaching occasions. Fifty-eight % of customers on the platform are serious about connecting with a finance knowledgeable and 64% of customers on the platform are serious about connecting with a advertising knowledgeable. The preferred matter areas are accessing capital, digital advertising, and enhancing on-line presence. Enterprise house owners would additionally desire to be part of a neighborhood the place they will study from each other, as 52% of customers need to join with friends with related pursuits.

5. 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 invaluable device to the BDOs, Small Enterprise Improvement Facilities, CDFIs and different organizations which are on the bottom serving to small companies day by day.  We’re partnering intently with all these organizations and dealing with them to combine our assets into their choices. Small Enterprise Digital Prepared’s neighborhood part additionally lets companies join with different companies and assets by metropolis in order that they will 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 centered 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 dealing with, and to debate how Verizon might be supportive shifting 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 invaluable relationships with the communities we serve. These dialogues are solely the start of what we hope will likely be long-term partnerships the place we will proceed the dialog and discover future alternatives to be supportive.

6. What expertise do you deliver to the neighborhood 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 type coalitions to deal with the challenges small companies face, amplify successes and greatest practices, and disseminate details about Verizon instruments and assets. Reflexively, I meet with companies to hearken 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 fundamental enterprise expertise, grants, the newest digital expertise and extra.