Leesburg Eases Requirements For Second Round Of Business Grants

LEESBURG, VA — The Leesburg Town Council approved a second round of business grants on Tuesday, using Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, funding received from Loudoun County. In the first round, 160 businesses were awarded grants, leaving about $1.5 million unallocated.

For its second round of grants, Leesburg made several changes in order for more businesses to qualify for funding. The changes include:

• Lowering the revenue loss threshold due to the coronavirus from 25 percent to 15 percent.
• Raising the initial grant amounts from $2,500 and $5,000 to $5,000 and $10,000.
• Creating three additional grant tiers of $1,000, $2,000 and $15,000.
• Expanding the annual revenue criteria to include businesses with as little as $2,500 to as much as $2.5 million in annual revenue.
• Removing the 50 employee limit.

About 75 percent of the town's businesses are now potentially eligible for funding under these revised criteria, according to the town.

“In the first round of grants, we were focused on helping the small businesses that did not qualify for funding from similar programs,” Russell Seymour, director of economic development for the town of Leesburg, said Thursday in a statement. “In this second round, we are opening the program up to more businesses.”

All the businesses that received $2,500 and $5,000 grants in the first round will automatically receive the additional funding for which they are eligible under the second round requirements. These businesses do not need to reapply in the second round.

Seymour said he anticipates opening the second round of funding to applications by the end of August.

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