I’d like to make the eligibility criteria clear to any prospective applicants:
“The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll.” (link)
The boards and directors of the business have to sign in good faith that “Current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant” (link)
Providing misleading or incomplete information is a federal crime
This is an emergency support loan exclusively for businesses to retain workers they’d otherwise be forced to make redundant. At the moment, my interpretation of your summary is that you could make this point more prominent. At the moment, it’s only included in the required documents section.
The wording ‘make sure to mention that uncertainty of current economic conditions makes necessary the loan request’ I think could be misinterpreted as leading people to exaggerate this factor, though I appreciate this may not be your intention.
I think it would be safer to say that ‘this loan is exclusively available to businesses which are struggling to maintain their staff on the payroll and meet bill payments, and if this condition applies to your organisation, then please report this accurately in the documents you provide’.
Current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant
I guess I assumed this was true for everyone, but I have now made it more clear and prominent throughout my article. If you’re lucky enough to not have economic uncertainty, I agree you should not apply for this grant.
I think there’s a difference between “are you affected by economic uncertainty”—which probably applies to all nonprofits right now—and “are you about to lay off staff or not be able to pay them.” The fact that loan forgiveness goes to organizations that have not laid anyone off within 8 weeks implies to me that it’s intended for organizations that would otherwise lay off staff or be unable to pay them within that timeframe, and I think most EA orgs have more than 8 weeks of runway.
The updated version of the post is clearer, though!
It’s the only time I can remember where it seems unfortunate that EA as a movement is good at planning and ensuring that critical nonprofits have sufficient runway.
Hi Peter,
I’d like to make the eligibility criteria clear to any prospective applicants:
“The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll.” (link)
The boards and directors of the business have to sign in good faith that “Current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant” (link)
Providing misleading or incomplete information is a federal crime
This is an emergency support loan exclusively for businesses to retain workers they’d otherwise be forced to make redundant. At the moment, my interpretation of your summary is that you could make this point more prominent. At the moment, it’s only included in the required documents section.
The wording ‘make sure to mention that uncertainty of current economic conditions makes necessary the loan request’ I think could be misinterpreted as leading people to exaggerate this factor, though I appreciate this may not be your intention.
I think it would be safer to say that ‘this loan is exclusively available to businesses which are struggling to maintain their staff on the payroll and meet bill payments, and if this condition applies to your organisation, then please report this accurately in the documents you provide’.
Thanks.
I guess I assumed this was true for everyone, but I have now made it more clear and prominent throughout my article. If you’re lucky enough to not have economic uncertainty, I agree you should not apply for this grant.
I think there’s a difference between “are you affected by economic uncertainty”—which probably applies to all nonprofits right now—and “are you about to lay off staff or not be able to pay them.” The fact that loan forgiveness goes to organizations that have not laid anyone off within 8 weeks implies to me that it’s intended for organizations that would otherwise lay off staff or be unable to pay them within that timeframe, and I think most EA orgs have more than 8 weeks of runway.
The updated version of the post is clearer, though!
It’s the only time I can remember where it seems unfortunate that EA as a movement is good at planning and ensuring that critical nonprofits have sufficient runway.