Facebook is offering two new ways for eligible small and medium businesses in the US to access capital more easily.
Ahead of National Small Business Week, Facebook released its Global State of Small Business report. The study showed that 60% of small businesses in the U.S. are still struggling to pay debts and overheads, and they are still having trouble accessing capital at a critical time when liquidity issues could mean the end of their businesses.
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In light of the findings, and on the occasion of the National Small Business Week, Facebook has introduced two new ways for diverse businesses to access capital more easily.
The first is the Facebook Invoice Fast Track program, which lets eligible small-to-medium businesses apply for Facebook to buy their invoices for immediate cash flow. In other words, for a low, fixed fee, they can get cash immediately – for goods and services they have already invoiced their customers for, but would have to wait months to get paid.
“We know how important working capital is to SMBs, and this is especially true when they are due money from their customers for work that they’ve completed,” said Jason Trimiew, Director of Global Supplier Diversity at Facebook. “Getting that cash today instead of months later can be the difference-maker for keeping employees or suppliers paid or investing in growth opportunities.”
The program is directed to minority, women, veteran, LGBTQ and disability-owned companies. Facebook is operating the program in partnership with Supplier Success and Crowdz and the fund has up to $100 million at its disposal.
The second is a new small business funding resource that connects small business owners with responsible lenders, relevant communities and information to help scale or manage their businesses.
“The pandemic brought to light the gaps in access to funding that have always existed for underrepresented business owners. We wanted to make a commitment to building tools that made information and inclusive funding partners easy to find and understand” said Ronnie Cameron, Product Manager, Social Impact at Facebook.
“We’ve been able to engage with some amazing organizations like the Community Reinvestment Fund, in order to connect business owners to the right sources of funding.”
To apply for the program, Business Page Admins can click on Business Resources and Small Business Funding.