On February 23, 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) launched Phase Two of the Economic Opportunity Grant (EOG) program, expanding the grant program from serving microbusinesses to include small businesses ($15,000 or $20,000 per grant) and nonprofits ($20,000 or $25,000 per grant). DEO launched Phase One in January 2023, initially accepting applications only from the County’s smallest and most vulnerable microbusinesses ($2,500 per grant).

Through EOG, DEO will award more than $54 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and California Office of Small Business Advocate funds across 6,800 grants in a continuous rollout to regions and organizations adversely affected by COVID-19. Since the launch of Phase One, more than 10,000 applications from microbusinesses have been submitted or are in progress.

For general inquiries or application assistance, potential applicants can call the EOG Call Center at (833) 364-7268. Multi-lingual application assistance and support will be provided by SBDC and partners, and will include the following languages: Arabic, Armenian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Farsi, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese. Multilingual guides can be found here.

In addition to Economic Opportunity Grant program, small businesses can also connect with DEO’s Office of Small Business to access customized one-on-one business counseling, free legal assistance on topics including commercial tenancy, contract development, intellectual property and more, and specialized webinars, workshops, and trainings to help residents open and grow a business. Contact the Office of Small Business at 844-432-4900 or via email at OSB@opportunity.lacounty.gov.