LiftFund is a non-profit organization that lends to small businesses that cannot receive loans from traditional banks. LiftFund provides small businesses with a number of resources to help their businesses grow and thrive, stimulating the local economy. When COVID-19 and the subsequent government shut down swept in, LiftFund’s clients felt a tremendous impact. Many of the small businesses that LiftFund serves were considered nonessential, so they had to close their doors.
As a non-profit, on any given day, LiftFund is already stretched thin from a human capital and financial resource standpoint. After the shutdown, LiftFund’s operational workload increased by 400%. While small businesses were shutting down, LiftFund became an essential business and the largest distributor of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding for the city of San Antonio and Bexar County. Not only was LiftFund’s staff working weekdays, they were working weekends to get the money into the hands of small businesses that were hurting because of the shutdown.