BizCare to use grant to help small business owners in KC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - BizCare, which is KCMO’s Office of Small Business, is working to help underrepresented entrepreneurs be successful.

“This program is specifically designed to stand in the gap, to address those that were unaddressed, to open that opportunity for folks who haven’t had that opportunity,” said the city’s Small Business Advocate Samuel Morris.

Last week, civil rights leaders and minority business owners called for the city manager to resign and called the mayor complicit for what they describe as a failure to address racial inequality.

“So, I think if we look at how money has been lent out historically, we can see those gaps and how they affect minority-owned businesses,” Morris added. “What we’re trying to do is institute this program that gives you a foot in the door.”

Morris said the $25,000 in grants the department was recently awarded will go a long way in ing minority and BIPOC entrepreneurs.

$15,000 will Hispanic and Latinx business owners. The additional $10,000 will go into an Access to Capital Program.

“Their DollarWise Innovation Grant is going to a larger pool of access to capital money that we’ve raised both privately and publicly,” said Morris. “That’s a pot of about $700,000 or more, including some ARPA money from the federal government.”

“Kansas City is a city of entrepreneurs,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said. “We are committed to ing our small, local, and minority businesses who serve our community every day and are so foundational to our city.”

BizCare will also provide wraparound services for the minority-owned and small businesses to help them be successful long-term.

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