SBC is excited to share that the Resilience Fund-Sierra continues to gain traction in the Tahoe region, having now funded 19 businesses and counting. Founded to save Sierra businesses forced to close down during the pandemic earlier this spring, the Resilience Fund has provided its first wave of clients with loans, coaching, and other valuable services.
These services have been organized and administered by SBC’s Business Innovation team and made possible by generous investors in our community. From individual donors and investors to our partners at the Town of Truckee, the Truckee Tomorrow group and now South Lake Tahoe, local contributors have pooled their resources to fund this grassroots loan platform and put capital directly back into our local economy where it is needed most.
Developed directly in response to the declared economic disaster and forced closures caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the Resilience Fund-Sierra crowdsources funds from Truckee, North Lake Tahoe, and now South Lake Tahoe. It is designed to provide immediate financial assistance as well as industry resources and guidance to Sierra Nevada businesses.
While it’s tied regionally to the Tahoe area at the moment, Sierra Business Council hopes that the fund will continue to gain momentum and eventually scale to serve the entire Sierra region. On the other side of the current economic crisis, the fund will serve as a permanent loan infrastructure for our small business community to help them grow, expand, and thrive.
Resilience Fund loans (which currently max out at $25,000) are to be used exclusively on overhead, payroll, and other business expenses and/or to generate new revenue or jump-start operations, assist in recovery, and purchase PPE as required. The loan is designed for small businesses with fewer than 25 employees and priority will be given to businesses with employees who have brick-and-mortar retail, restaurant, and storefront operations.
For more details on businesses the fund is intended to support and if you qualify, please visit ResilienceFund.org.
The Sierra will bounce back from this crisis stronger than ever. Follow this link to make a direct contribution to the Resilience Fund and click here to support SBC’s behind the scenes administration of this work.
I grew up climbing on granite slabs at Donner Summit, and the rock formations fascinated me. Everywhere I went in the mountains, I found myself mesmerized by the colors, textures, and stratigraphy lines that painted the landscapes. Having grown up in Northern California in an outdoors family, the concept of conservation was ingrained very early. “Respect the playground; if you want the beautiful places you love to remain intact, then do your part.” At that point in my life, I knew I wanted to do something that allowed me to be outside and in the field solving problems (or something to that extent). Naturally, I began my academic career pursuing a degree in geology.
Fire has always had a place in California. There was a time when the state had a well-defined wildfire season, when homeowners in California’s wildland urban interface could readily insure their homes, when wildfire smoke wouldn’t blanket the entire state at one time. Unfortunately, due to a century of mismanagement of our fire ecosystem and the growing impacts of climate change, that time has passed.
For fear of sounding like a broken record, I will skip over the detailed account of how my fellowship/life is not exactly as I expected it to be, thanks to the pandemic. It’s 2021 but you could also call it December 56th, 2020. It didn’t become a brand new world January 1st, we are still wearing masks, working from home in our sweatpants, and trying to avoid refreshing the news. At the same time, I have been pondering the beauty of my unexpected journey to CivicSpark and SBC.
I know I am not the only one glad to leave 2020 in the dust. At Sierra Business Council we talk a lot about turning challenges into opportunities, about implementing actionable steps that don’t just temporarily solve one-off problems but offer alternative ways of doing business, interacting with the environment, and existing in the Sierra to eradicate what causes those problems in the first place. As an organization, we’re proactive rather than reactive, and our goal is to build a region that is as well.
No one saw 2020 coming, though. Over the course of the last year, everyone has been asked to react to the unexpected, the unimaginable.
Please join us in building a stronger Sierra by helping us reach our goal of $20,000. The money we raise today and through the end of the year will go directly to building economic, environmental, and social resilience in communities throughout the Sierra.
Do you know of an innovative partnership between California employers and educators that is successfully preparing workers to meet the needs of our economy?
Developed directly in response to the declared economic disaster and forced closures caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the Resilience Fund-Sierra crowdsources funds from Truckee, North Lake Tahoe, and now South Lake Tahoe. It is designed to provide immediate financial assistance as well as industry resources and guidance to Sierra Nevada businesses.
