{"id":429210,"date":"2020-08-27T14:12:47","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T12:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=429210"},"modified":"2020-08-27T14:12:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T12:12:47","slug":"facebook-is-handing-out-grants-to-small-businesses-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/429210\/facebook-is-handing-out-grants-to-small-businesses-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook is handing out grants to small businesses in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook has launched a R8.5 million grant scheme to support small businesses in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This forms part of its $100 million (R1.7 billion) Global Grants Programme announced earlier this year, which aims to support 30,000 <span class=\"st\">small and midsize business<\/span> (SMBs) in over 30 countries.<\/p>\n<p>The platform said that the programme is targeted at stimulating economic recovery following the effects of Covid-19, which will help &#8220;empower and extend a lifeline to local small business owners who have been most affected&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>To date, 217 small businesses in the country have been identified for assistance.<\/p>\n<p>Administered and managed by Deloitte South Africa, the grants will be provided as a combination of cash and ad credits to help small businesses as they rebuild, re-engineer and recover operations during this challenging year.<\/p>\n<p>They will be available to qualifying SMBs in South Africa. To be eligible to apply, businesses must:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have between 2 and 50 employees;<\/li>\n<li>Have been in business for over a year;<\/li>\n<li>Have experienced challenges due to Covid-19.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Applications will be open from 27 August 2020 &#8211; 5 September 2020 at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/grantsforbusiness\">www.facebook.com\/grantsforbusiness<\/a> where SMBs will be able to see whether they\u2019re eligible as well as find out more details about the programme.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virtual training<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As part of its initiative to assist small businesses, Facebook has also set up a platform to help with groups that need training, digitalisation assistance and improved social connection infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As consumer behaviour shifts online, Facebook has also rolled out virtual versions of its in-person training &#8211; Boost with Facebook across South Africa. These free webinars and online resources cover a range of topics from how to take your business online, build resilience, stay connected with customers and adapt in real time,&#8221; the group said.<\/p>\n<p>In the recent State of Small Business Report, published by Facebook in partnership with the OECD and the World Bank, the many challenges faced by SMBs during this Covid-19 crisis were laid bare, specifically with 44% of SMBs in South Africa saying that cash flow over the next few months is a concern.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know small businesses are the engines of the South African economy, the Covid-19 pandemic has extended beyond a public health crisis to an economic emergency, with these small businesses most affected,&#8221; said Nunu Ntshingila, regional director, Facebook Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re listening to the challenges these small business owners are facing right now and want to provide useful resources for them during this difficult and uncertain year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/398295\/faster-internet-coming-to-south-africa-with-facebooks-1-billion-subsea-cable\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Faster internet coming to South Africa with Facebook\u2019s $1 billion subsea cable<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook has launched a R8.5 million grant scheme to support small businesses in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":429222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[181,45,26],"class_list":["post-429210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-deloitte","tag-facebook","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429210"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429246,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429210\/revisions\/429246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}