Federal Resources for Small Businesses

CONSOLIDATED WEBSITE

This page is dedicated to the official federal resource website for U.S. small businesses affected by COVID-19 (Coronavirus). You can view relevant federal agency resources, access the latest news, and search for a Small Business Advisor near you.

On March 27th, 2020 the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed by Congress with overwhelming, bipartisan support and signed into law by President Trump. 

In April 2020 under the CARES Act and with the support of U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), America's SBDC and the Association of Women’s Business Centers (AWBC) were awarded a grant to develop a new website that provides small businesses with access to a consolidation of COVID-19 related information and resources from multiple federal agencies. The grant also supports a new training platform for small business advisors. 

The project, titled “Resource Partners Training Portal (RPTP)” requires two centrally controlled but independent functions. The first is a web platform containing information to assist small business with surviving and recovering from the effects, physical, financial and economic of the Covid-19 pandemic. This centralized platform will consolidate information obtained from multiple federal agency resources and make it accessible in an organized format with searchable functionality. 

The other function of the website will be a training and learning platform for SBDC, WBC, SCORE and VBOC advisers. Recognizing the urgency of this project due to the economic pressures on small business concerns, America's SBDC and AWBC envision the project rolling out in multiple phases, prioritizing the needs of small business concerns.

The training platform for small business advisors will feature live content, author interactive learning experiences, support of SCORM content, forums, communication and collaboration features and more. chat feature for learner collaboration. The expected launch date for the training platform is June 2020.

This links to the public website now live and can be accessed by anyone looking for federal information related to COVID-19 and small business.