Erie County Has A New Program To Help Small Businesses

New York State is full of people who are filled with the entrepreneurial spirit. Everyday more than 13,000 new businesses are started by Americans who are looking to become their own boss.

Owning a business is hard, which you can tell because a little more than 1 in 5 small businesses fail within their first year. However, thanks to a new program that has been created in Erie County, small business owners will get a little more support to make their journey to success a little easier.

Erie County Creates The Level Up Program

According to the Erie County Website, The Level Up Program was created to give businesses ownwers who meet certain criteria some addition help to get their businesses off the ground.

Erie County Level Up is a new county-based wraparound services initiative for business owners who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and operate a business within a low-income zip code in Western New York.
-Erie County, New York

The Erie County Departments of Environment & Planning, Public Works, and the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity have teamed up with April Baskin, Chairman of the Erie County Legislature to make this program a reality.

With more than $1.5 billion being spent to develop the new football stadium for the Buffalo Bills, government officials were looking for a way to ensure that the M/WBE hiring targets were hit during the construction phase of the stadium project.

The program is currently underway as a pilot that has started with 50 businesses. This pilot is helping to inform the program managers what to improve before the program is fully opened up to the public.

The full program is set to start in 2034. For more information, you can check the Level Up website here.