News Updates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—December 11, 2014—Erie, Pa—At its regularly scheduled meeting today, the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority board of directors launched phase two of ECGRA’s small business-centric initiative, Ignite Erie. ECGRA committed up to $3.9 million to this second phase created to  spur inner-city small business development, build industry+university collaborations for business acceleration,  and offer a broader spectrum of financing products for starting, growing, and reinventing small business. Today, ECGRA released grant guidelines and opened the grant submission process for two of the three funding strategies:

#1 Inner-city Small Business Development

Erie’s inner-city is a regional force in the economy and can grow with strategic investments capable of recognizing and capitalizing on inherent competitive advantages in the market. ECGRA is committing $150,000 over three years to seed one organization with the mission, capacity, and knowledge to tap into the unrealized potential of inner-city markets and entrepreneurs.

ECGRA Executive Director Perry Wood said, “Small business development in impoverished census tracts is at the heart of improving commercial corridors and revitalizing neighborhoods. If we can find one key organization to mastermind and drive a business-focused revitalization strategy, we may change the trajectory of Erie’s inner-city and its residents.”  

ECGRA is soliciting grant applications from 501c3 organizations, Community Development Financing Institutions, or Small Business Investment Company-approved entities headquartered in Erie County that can develop a cohesive strategy to revitalize the inner-city one neighborhood at a time. Applicants will need to demonstrate their ability to work collaboratively with banks, developers, and small business owners to ignite commercial activities in the inner-city of Erie.

#2 Industry+University Business Acceleration Collaboration

In The Path Forward, the leaders of Erie County’s universities identified themselves as playing an important role in the development of the region’s economy. By investing up to $750,000 over three years, ECGRA intends to galvanize those leaders to create an industry+university ecosystem that supports the entrepreneur from stage-to-stage of product and service development. 

Wood said, “Across the country, universities are collaborating with each other, startup entrepreneurs, small business, manufacturing, labor, healthcare, and local government to create an atmosphere conducive to innovation. While Erie can’t boast federal labs, major research institutions, or tech clusters, we are strong in applied sciences and manufacturing. Erie’s entrepreneurial spirit will be ignited when our university community comes together and leads an effort to bring the applied sciences to local industry, basement tinkerers, and ambitious students.”
 

ECGRA is currently soliciting grant applications from 501c3 organizations, Community Development Financing Institutions, or Small Business Investment Company-approved entities headquartered in Erie County that can facilitate an industry+university collaborative effort to fuel and support innovative product and service development. Applicants must clearly identify established ties to local industry and collaborative university partnerships that complement their organization’s research and development strengths in service to the entrepreneur.

Both the Inner-city Small Business Development and the Industry+University Business Acceleration Collaboration grant programs require a 1:1 cash match; existence of an endowment does not count toward the match and gaming funds from other sources cannot be used toward match. For full grant guidelines, including eligible use of funds, and to apply, click here. Applications are due January 8, 2015. Call 814-897-2690 with questions.

On the Horizon: Impact Investing in Small Business
The third Ignite Erie funding strategy will launch early-mid 2015 and inject up to $3,000,000 in mission-related investments (MRIs) into Erie County small businesses through financing intermediaries committed to funding enterprises that both spur the economy and fortify our community. To execute this strategy, ECGRA will carefully vet eligible financing institutions and their practices to ensure ECGRA funds will support small businesses that not only produce financial returns, but also social and environmental returns. This type of impact investing is a national movement centered on rethinking how governments, philanthropic institutions, and corporations make investments. ECGRA adopted an Impact Investing Policy in 2014 to guide the board of directors in making MRIs in community-centric lenders. Click here for an MRI Prequalification Form.

About Ignite Erie

This up to $3.9 million Ignite Erie three-part funding strategy is the partial result of insight and feedback from ECGRA’s entrepreneur-centric initiative, Ignite Erie: A Day of Innovation, co-hosted by ECGRA and 26 leading innovation agencies in November 2013. That one-day event brought together more than 350 entrepreneurs, educators, policy-makers, subject matter experts, and elected officials to discuss the future of inner-city investment and innovation-based economic development. The Ignite Erie funding strategy also draws on expert economic development literature related to the role small businesses, universities, and metropolitan regions play in the growth of the economy. The new funding streams are expected to:

       Create jobs through investments in the region’s small businesses

       Utilize small business development as a tool to catalyze new investment in inner-city neighborhoods and commercial districts suffering from blight and disinvestment

       Accelerate intellectual property-based products and technology transfer to companies through industry+university partnership models

       Provide Erie companies access to new and hybrid financial products at the micro-finance, debt, and venture capital levels

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An impact investor, ECGRA’s mission is to elevate Erie County by galvanizing nonprofits toward economic and community development. Since February 2008, ECGRA has invested more than $30 million in Erie County thanks to the pioneering leadership of members of the ECGRA board of directors and staff. Learn more at ECGRA.org or call 814-897-2690.
ECGRA PR CONTACT: Amanda Burlingham, 814-504-3037, aburlingham1@neo.rr.com