08/22/2024
In a Facebook, the company's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, says that the company will be launching a massive grant program on the second of October 2023 to help small businesses. Specifically, the company will provide $900 million in "cash and ad credits" to 30,000 businesses in the 30 countries where Facebook operates.
Facebook has also created a page where small-business owners can sign up to receive more information when the program starts accepting applications. While the site doesn't say exactly when that happens, Facebook is clear that this is more than just providing free ads on its platform. In fact, the company gives several examples of how small businesses might use these grants, like covering operational costs, paying for rent, or covering employee wages.
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The company also launched a "Business Resource Hub" with information about how to cope with the effect of the current pandemic. There, small-business owners can find tips for managing their businesses, as well as downloadable content with best practices and a self-assessment.
No matter what you think about Facebook (or its CEO), $900 million is real money. And these grants could be the difference-maker for many of those 30,000 small businesses. That's worth pointing out.
Of course, those small businesses are Facebook's customers, and the world's second-largest advertising platform obviously has a huge incentive to see those customers survive. Then again, so do we all.
In fact, that's a great lesson for every company right now. Consider what you can do to help your customers get through the current challenge. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it also happens to be an investment that will pay off when life returns to normal. It might very well be a different type of normal--but, right now, let's just all figure out how we get there, together.
