Greetings,

We are back! How are you doing?

It’s been a few months since our last newsletter. So many things have happened – we are still coping with the pandemic as other small businesses and families are, and we’re all trying to plan as best as we can for the future despite how uncertain everything is.

According to Yelp, Inc., the online crowd-sourced review platform, more than 80,000 small businesses permanently closed between March 1 to July 25. About 60,000 were local businesses or firms with fewer than five locations. According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, about 800 small businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy from mid-February to July 31, and the trade group expects the 2020 total to be up 36% from last year.

We at Periwinkle Group were impacted when we abruptly closed in March. We experienced a reduction in business from the pause and cancellation of our contracts. Over the past few months, we used the break as an opportunity to pivot as we explore new opportunities available to reopen our business.

Be encouraged, during this time of crisis, it may be necessary to slightly switch your business model altogether in order to keep your business afloat. Consider ways that you may be able to adjust your business model to provide your core good or service in a more advantageous way.

Below we share client news, community happenings and resources available to assist small businesses to stay afloat.

It might seem grim now, but your business can survive! So no matter how grim the situation seems for your business now, work on developing a Survival Plan that will ensure that your business not only thrives but is stronger than ever before

Until next time - Yours in Prosperity,

Jo Cato

#StaySafe & #Maskup

We want to congratulate our client, Aesha Goins, founder of Black Joy Consulting, on being named a finalist for the Woman of Distinction Awards (WODA) in the Rising Star Category. WODA honors remarkable women who inspire success and have shown great dedication and excellence in their fields.

The awards will be distributed virtually on October 7, 2020, from 3 to 5 pm during which all finalists will be honored and the twelve (12) recipients of the WODA 2020 Award will be announced.

As the Census deadline approaches, we continue to bring awareness to the Nevada Census as we currently have a 63.5% response rate statewide and ranked #27 in the nationwide. There is still time to complete the Census, and it is very important that everyone gets counted. Please encourage your family, colleagues, friends, and neighbors to get counted so that our state can get its fair share of Congressional representatives, federal funding for education, health care, community resources, and more.

Shape our future in less than 10 minutes at census.nv.gov or call us at 844-330-2020 (para español, llame 844-468-2020).

The Nevada Commercial Rental Assistance Grant (CRAG)

The Nevada Commercial Rental Assistance Grant (CRAG) makes $19MM in Coronavirus Relief Funds available for commercial rental relief for Nevada small businesses (including non-profits, sole proprietorships, independent contractors and those that are self-employed) that have lost revenue as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.<-

In order to best meet the needs of Nevada’s small business and non-profit community and ensure as few commercial evictions as possible, several changes have been made to the Program’s requirements:

Application deadline has been extended by a week to Tuesday, September 8, 2020 at 5 p.m.

Removes requirement that entities must not have received more than $5,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds or other COVID-19 related assistance that could have been used for rent.

Standardizes award amount for all eligible businesses - all eligible businesses who can verify a loss of at least 30% in revenue since the previous year are now eligible to receive the maximum grant award amount up to $10,000