New Grant Program Targets ​“Underserved Entrepreneurs”

With the help of a grant from a new program designed to help minority and women-owned businesses, Alisha Crutchfield hopes to hire more employees at her wellness-oriented Westville boutique — including those who may not have the perfect résumé, but are willing to learn.

Leaders of the New Haven Equitable Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (NHE3) applauded Crutchfield’s hard work and celebrated the launch of that grant program at a Monday morning press conference at 70 Audubon St.

The $8.7 million NHE3 grant program plans to award grants worth an average of $6,000 each to roughly 750 local businesses over the next five years. The program is funded by $7.2 million from the state Department of Economic and Community Development and $1.5 million from the City of New Haven’s federal American Rescue Plan Act allocation.

Crutchfield, whose Westville business BLOOM has emerged over the past two years as a popular neighborhood gathering space for community and culture, represents one of 125 business owners in the Greater New Haven Area who have already received grant NHE3 money for the businesses. Ninety of these business-owner recipients so far have been women, and of those, 60 are Black women. 

The NHE3 grants aim to support ​“underserved entrepreneurs” who, as Mayor Justin Elicker said on Monday, ​“haven’t historically benefited from New Haven’s riches.” The initiative is led by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (CFGNH), and include a website that promotes participating businesses and contains application information.

Community Foundation President and CEO Will Ginsberg spoke on Monday about race and gender disparities in business and financing to emphasize the necessity of this grant money. He referenced a study by the Yale School of Management on disparities in access to financing, and the statistic that only 2 percent of venture capital in the U.S. is awarded to women-owned businesses. To Ginsberg, the evidence is clear and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic only underscored the need for programs like NHE3.

“New Haven has spent decades searching for an engine to drive its economy,” Ginsberg said. He noted the positive impact of New haven’s biotech industry, but said small businesses ought to play a part in fueling the locomotive that will drive the community’s economic success. Mayor Elicker echoed the same sentiment acknowledging Yale University’s immense contributions to New Haven’s economy, and also the importance of not ​“carrying all our eggs in one basket” or industry.

“We can’t have an economy that relies only on one sector, that’s where local business comes in,” the mayor said. He described how money spent by local businesses is spent at a higher rate within the community. 

Crutchfield closed out the press conference sharing her experiences running a small business. She spoke about all of the time and effort she’s put in over the past two years to make BLOOM a success, and about how she’s looking forward to growing the business with the help of this new grant.