Founders First Announces Job Creators Grant For Texas Businesses

Founders First CDC announced the second wave of its Job Creators Quest Grant which will award $100,000 to minority business owners throughout Texas.

Founders First is a non-profit organization empowering expansion in diverse founder-led, revenue-generating businesses. The Job Creators Quest Grant for Texas is open for submission through July 25, 2022. In total 30 grants will be awarded to diverse-led businesses across the state of Texas.

To be eligible to apply for the grant, businesses must be located in Texas, have a current staff of between two and 20 employees, and can add 1-2 net new premium wage jobs within the next year.

The company’s founder must also be Black, indigenous, a person of color, LGBTQIA+, military veteran, a woman or located in a low to moderate-income area and be a for-profit company with annual revenue between $100,000 to $3 million. 

The purpose of the Job Creators Quest Grant is to help business owners create premium wage jobs and reward diverse-led businesses in Texas to retain and regrow their workforce as businesses and the U.S. emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and amid looming threats of another economic recession.

“With the rising cost of living, it can be challenging for families let alone business owners to stay afloat, particularly when it costs them more to provide goods and services for their consumers,” said Shaylon Scott, executive director of Founders First. “We are happy to be able to invest money and resources in hard-working business owners throughout Texas to help them thrive, even during uncertain economic times. Investing in diverse entrepreneurs is not only an impactful way to create jobs but is a pivotal way to close the general wealth gap in underserved communities.” 

Funding for the Job Creators Quest Grant was facilitated by a $1 million national grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and in conjunction with Founders First Capital Partners’ recent $9 million Series A financing accelerator.

National and regional partners include ADP, Black Enterprise, JP Morgan Chase, The Kauffman Foundation, African American Chamber of San Antonio and many others. Founders First announced and released similar efforts in Chicago, Pennsylvania and New Jersey