Paycheck Protection Program loans are starting to be sent out to Ohio’s smallest businesses with the help of Columbus microlender Economic and Community Development Institute.
More than $6 million in PPP loans from the latest round of funding have been approved so far to ECDI’s clients, the SBA lender told us.
ECDI’s goal is to serve those that don’t have relationships with traditional commercial lenders, or who are in underrepresented communities, such as minority-business owners, said Inna Kinney, CEO and founder of ECDI.
“We are serving exactly who was left behind” in the previous rounds of PPP, Kinney said.
Kinney’s team is urging all eligible small businesses in Ohio to apply now that the deadline has been extended to May 31 – and to not assume that they’re ineligible for the program.
“That’s why it’s so important to see it extended,” she said. “We’ve got to save our businesses. We’ve got to make sure as many of them survive as possible.”
So far, nearly 1,100 businesses have applied through ECDI’s portal, and more than 380 loans have been closed and approved by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Another 700 are waiting approval.
Just 4% of the completed applications through ECDI were not approved by the SBA.
The loans that have been approved by the SBA for ECDI clients have gone to a diverse group of Ohio businesses. More than 60% of the loans went to Black or African American business owners, nearly 25% went to white business owners, and 6.5% went to Hispanic or Latino business owners. The remainder went to other minority groups or did not disclose their race.
The loans are split nearly 50-50 among gender, ECDI said.
Kinney pointed out that previous rounds of PPP have been criticized for not serving a diverse group of business owners. ECDI is attempting to fix that, she said.
The average PPP loan for ECDI’s clients is about $17,000, the organization said. While small, Kinney said that’s because many of ECDI’s clients are extremely small businesses or sole proprietors.
Kinney said that ECDI could not have made the program work without the support of traditional banks that funded their ability to front the loan money. PNC Bank granted ECDI $10 million, and ECDI has another relationship through Fifth Third Bank in which the bank is acting as an intermediary for the microlender.