FOGI Grant and No-Interest Loan Program

Representatives from the Friends of Grand Isle (FOGI) and two Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) traveled to Grand Isle on Friday, January 26 to meet with Grand Isle businesses interested in grants and no-interest loans.  We had marvelous help from the SBDC’s from the Greater New Orleans Area and the SBDC from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  These professionals had agreed to help FOGI in this venture at no cost beyond travel and per diem.  We owe them a great debt of gratitude for their assistance.

We obtained $150,000 from the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation for grants, loans and technical assistance exclusively for Grand Isle businesses. Of this amount, $142,000 was available for the grant/loan program.  Our trip to Grand Isle was to gather information needed for grant/loan eligibility.  We were very pleased with the response to our proposed loan/grant program from local businesses.  Indeed, we were overwhelmed by the response and the needs of businesses.  We had 95 business applications for a mixture of loans and grants for businesses from Grand Isle.  From preliminary appointments we expected about 25 to 30 businesses might be interested in grants and loans, so we were truly overwhelmed when 95 businesses applied.  Most of those wanted both a grant and a loan, and almost all met the FOGI criteria for grants and loans. 

In addition we have 6-10 businesses that applied after the Grand Isle meeting including several businessmen who couldn’t come to the meeting for health reasons.  We were also surprised when 31 Grand Isle fishermen (shrimp and oyster fishermen) showed up as they were not part of our original business targets- but almost all met most of the criteria for grants and loans, including residence on the island.  Most of these businessmen were keenly interested in both grants and loans. Of the 31 who applied roughly half (15) wanted both grants and loans, the remainder wanted only grants. 

Prior to our Grand Isle meetings we had capped the grants at $2,000 and the loans at $5,000.  Unfortunately, the needs of Grand Isle businesses far exceed our available funds of $142,000.  Indeed we would need an additional $335,000 or more to meet the expressed needs.  Hence we have decided upon a strategy of two approaches.  In the first approach we will distribute grants to Grand Isle businesses that qualify.  Most of these businesses will receive $1,600.  A few will receive $1,000 and one or two will receive $500.  That investment in grants will exhaust our funds available at this time.  Our second approach is to delay any disbursement of loan funds until we receive additional funds from foundations or interested parties.  We have begun searching for those funds even as this report is being written.

I might add that our SBDC counselors were quite impressed with the very high credit ratings of these business applicants.  That speaks well for Grand Isle businesses!  We are moving forward to distribute grants and should have them distributed in the next two weeks.  And given the needs of Grand Isle businesses we will seek additional funds to support the no-interest loan program.  Stay tuned!