The purpose of the targeted grant this time around is to complete that original intent for businesses who truly were impacted by the pandemic. And that's all we received, if we did apply. However, those of us who don't have employees could only receive a $1,000 advance. Independent contractors and self employed individuals were eligible for the grant. The SBA later added the rules that defined that it would be $1,000 per employee up to ten employees. The intent of the act was to have all businesses receive a $10,000 advance that did not have to be paid back. In some ways you could say the targeted advances are an effort to ‘make whole' the previous advances under the CARES Act earlier in 2020. The difference between the targeted grant and the advance given out earlier in 2020 Second priority will be those who applied but never received an advance due to lack of funding.
Priority in this round of funding will be given first to those who received the earlier advance but did not receive the full $10,000. The purpose of this targeted advance is to provide a larger amount of relief to businesses, sole proprietors and independent contractors who received less than the full $10,000 advance that was part of the original Covid-19 EIDL advance from early and mid 2020, and who were truly impacted by the pandemic. As of mid February, the SBA is just now getting around to processing applications. The targeted EIDL advance was something added in the stimulus package passed late December of 2020. What is this grant, and are you eligible?
I include a lot of text from the SBA email and application. Just be warned that some of this content focuses on contractors who do not have employees, so some things may be different for you. If you run or manage a larger business, hopefully this can still be helpful for you. I write especially about the business side of being a gig economy contractor. Note that this is written with a particular focus towards independent contractors and self employed individuals. If you received an invitation to complete the application, this post is here to help you walk step by step through how to fill out the application for the Covid-19 EIDL Targeted advance grant, focusing especially on independent contractors with gig economy apps like Doordash, Instacart, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Uber and Lyft and others.
The SBA has begun the process of reaching out to individuals who may be eligible for the Covid-19 Targeted EIDL Advance, inviting them to apply for the additional funds.