As the Director of Lending & Business Outreach at the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, my goal is to expand GRCA\u2019s relationships with businesses throughout Berks County and increase awareness of the resources and services GRCA can provide. The primary objective is not simply to find businesses that need financing, but to focus on building long-term relationships with businesses.<\/p>\n
By establishing GRCA as a trusted resource, businesses will know who to contact when they eventually need financing, economic development resources or other support.<\/p>\n
The Local Share Account (LSA) program was established by the Pennsylvania Horse Development and Gaming Act and provides for a portion of gaming revenues to be distributed through the Commonwealth Financing Authority (CFA) for community projects. The Greater Berks Development Fund (GBDF), an affiliate of GRCA, is the only Certified Economic Development Organization (CEDO) serving Berks County. GBDF is a conduit to access grant and loan programs offered through the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development and is eligible to apply for LSAs on behalf of nonprofits and municipalities. In addition, we partner with other local organizations to identify resources for businesses and projects.<\/p>\n
The LSA grant program provides funding for public-interest projects that improve quality of life. The eligible uses include property acquisition, construction, demolition, infrastructure improvements, vehicles, machinery and equipment, planning, consulting, design and engineering. Other eligible applicants are counties, municipalities, economic development agencies and redevelopment authorities. A nonprofit can be the owner of an eligible project, but the nonprofit is required to have an eligible applicant apply on its behalf.<\/p>\n
The Category 4 LSA program (Berks, Cumberland, Westmoreland and York Counties only) is for projects up to $100,000 and the statewide program (all eligible counties) is for projects up to $1,000,000. The Category 4 application window is July 1 through Sept. 30. The statewide program opens Sept. 1 and closes Nov. 30. A project cannot start before CFA approval. Commencement can include signing contracts, issuing a notice to proceed, making a down payment or incurring project costs.<\/p>\n
If you are a nonprofit thinking about a larger project involving infrastructure, property, equipment or community improvements, the LSA program is worth putting on the radar as a potential funding source. If you would like to discuss a potential project, please contact me at 610-898-7761 or khayick@greaterreading.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kayla Hayick is the Director of Lending & Business Outreach, GRCA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Director of Lending & Business Outreach at the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, my goal is to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,60,1559,1560,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-291655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-business","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}