Ossoff urges Trump official to reinstate millions in Black-owned business funding
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U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is urging the Trump administration to reinstate millions in federal grant funding to the Urban League of Greater Atlanta for a program aimed at providing support and technical assistance to Atlanta’s Black entrepreneurs.
Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in early August asking him to reinstate the $3 million grant, saying withholding the funding “punishes job creators, hinders Georgia’s economic growth, and denies critical services from being delivered to my constituents.”
In 2023, the Urban League of Greater Atlanta was among 43 groups across the country to receive grants as part of a $125 million federal Capital Readiness Program administered by the Minority Business Development Agency.
The program was aimed at “supporting the people who support minority-owned businesses,” Biden administration officials said at the time of the program’s launch. They said it was the largest-ever direct federal investment in small business “incubators and accelerators.”
But the grant was canceled in April after President Donald Trump issued an executive order to dismantle the MBDA, according to Ossoff’s letter. But the senator argued that a judge’s subsequent ruling that the MBDA be reopened and canceled grants be restored meant the Commerce Department needed to reinstate the Atlanta Urban League’s funding.
The organization was 18 months into the four-year grant when the funding was stopped, Nancy Flake Johnson, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Atlanta, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. About $2.2 million was still left on the grant, she said.
Her first reaction was “disappointment, naturally.”
“This allowed us to really zero in on one of the biggest challenges that any small business faces, and that’s having the capital they need to operate during the peaks and valleys of business,” Johnson said.
As part of the program, the organization offered classes, coaching and opportunities for businesses to meet investors, banks and other groups that offer capital. It also ran an accelerator on how to get contracts.
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In the first year of the initiative, more than 3,000 businesses in metro Atlanta engaged with its various resources, according to the organization. The Atlanta Urban League also helped 17 companies obtain $1.7 million in loans, grants and contract opportunities, and 128 businesses graduated from one of the organization’s training programs.
The second year of the program was on track to far surpass those figures before the grant was canceled, with more than 1,700 businesses engaging with the program between September of last year and this spring. But Johnson said she has had to lay off the staff on that grant, and the organization is now just “doing our best to continue to support those companies with the smaller team we have.”
The Commerce Department has not yet responded to Ossoff’s letter and did not immediately respond to the AJC’s request for comment.
About the Author
Mirtha Donastorg is a reporter on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s business team focusing on Black wealth, entrepreneurship, and minority-owned businesses as well as innovation at Atlanta’s HBCUs.
