With more than half of the $600K fund still up for grabs, the Greeley Area Recovery Fund offers marketing grant

Restaurants, coffee shops and bars have so far received the most funding from the Greeley Area Recovery Fund in the wake of COVID-19. More than half of the $600K fund is still available. Photo by Joshua Polson.

By Kelly Ragan

There is still money up for grabs in the Greeley Area Recovery Fund, but there’s also a new option available to business owners.

The fund is now offering marketing grants ranging from between $500 to $1,000 to local businesses.

According to its website, the funds can be used for:

• Website updating

• Message creation

• Printed material

• Print advertising

• Social media

• Signage

Benjamin Snow, Greeley’s director of economic health and housing, said at Tuesday’s city council meeting that they opened up the marketing grant phase last week.

“We earmarked $50,000 and the response has been phenomenal,” Snow said. “We’ve already received 40 applications. We’ll see how that goes – we haven’t granted those awards yet.”

The Greeley Area Recovery Fund is also still taking applications from businesses seeking short-term financial relief in the wake of COVID-19.

At a city council worksession July 14, Snow said the applicant flow was holding steady, with 3-5 new applications coming in each week.

As of last week, the Greeley Area Recovery Fund received 181 applications total, with 158 coming from Greeley.

So far, the selection committee has issued 86 grants totaling $252,228.

As of the NoCo Optimist’s last count of the total number raised by the private-public partnership, the fund had a total of $604,382 available, meaning at least $352,154 is still up for grabs.

That also means the selection committee, which remains anonymous, had only approved about 47.5% of the Greeley Area Recovery Fund applications as of July 14.

During the work session, Snow said the committee was waiting on additional information from 13 applicants.

Where has the money gone so far?

We won’t know which businesses get the grants and which ones don’t. We also don’t have a full picture of who is on the committee making those decisions.  

We do know what industries have, thus far, benefitted most from the grant, according to Snow.

Restaurants, coffee shops and bars remain the top recipients with 33 grants.

Personal and professional services follow behind with 28 grants.

How to apply

For more information or to apply for a grant, go to https://greeleyarearecoveryfund.com/.