Get money to get your business going – Alberta’s SMERG

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The government of Alberta had put together the Small and Medium Enterprise Relaunch Grant (SMERG). This is a $500 million fund. The program provides funding to organizations that saw a 30% revenue reduction in April or May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant is based on 15% of the eligible organization’s pre-COVID-19 monthly revenue up to a maximum of $5,000 per business, cooperative or non-profit organization. So, if you are looking to get money to get your business going, this is for you.

This grant provides an additional amount of up to $15,000 based on the same criteria, with every business impacted by Covid-19 having the opportunity to secure grant funding of unto $20,000.

Eligibility Criteria

Businesses, cooperatives and non-profit organizations that closed or curtailed operations as a result of public health orders issued by Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health may be eligible.

However, applicants will need to demonstrate a revenue reduction of at least 30% in April and/or May 2020 as a result of COVID-19 public health order.

If your business received any other payments, grants or amounts from federal or provincial government sources or from insurance to replace or compensate for the loss of revenue (other than the sources listed above), your organization is not eligible to apply.

To be eligible for the second payment, organizations must be operating in a region affected by the public health orders in effect from November 6, 2020 and later, and must have been required to curtail operations by those public health orders.

Organizations with multiple Alberta permanent physical establishments that have seen revenue reduction are eligible to apply for funding for each establishment. This includes scenarios where an organization has more than one location/chapter/branch that has seen revenue reduction of at least 30% due to COVID-19 public health orders. Applicants will need to submit separate applications for each location/chapter/branch, and check the appropriate box in the application form.

The guidelines to the program are available here.

How To Apply?

The online application portal can be accessed here.

Please note that you will need to provide documents to support the reduction in revenue.

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About Dotun Ayodele-Bamisaiye

Engineer turned Accountant, twice designated to boot. Now I just love to help.

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