Call for pitches: Ascender is giving mini-grants to Black-owned businesses in Pittsburgh

Most experts agree that to succeed, businesses need organization, a clear business plan, and a good management team. Another crucial piece? Capital — which is where Ascender wants to be of assistance.

For the second year, the Pittsburgh community org for entrepreneurs has launched a mini grant program aimed at Black business owners in Allegheny County. The East Liberty-based organization will award five mini-grants ranging from $300 to $5,000, Ascender Executive Director Nadyli Nuñez told Technical.ly,

“We work with entrepreneurs every day,” Nuñez said. “And we can teach them about marketing and sales all we want, [but] at the end of the day, they need money to do these things.”

Apply for a mini grant

Ascender has experience awarding small, directed grants. In the fall of 2023, in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, it launched the Mini-Becas accelerator program to support local Latinx entrepreneurs.

What Ascender’s leadership is looking for from applicants, per Nuñez, is clarity and visible effort. Knowling there’s a lot that goes into keeping a business running, Nuñez urged applicants to put care into their pitches, but to not worry about overdoing it.

The production value of a pitch doesn’t matter so much, Nuñez said, “but it does need to be thoughtful [about] what your intention is. It is important that you know what your vision is [and] have some traction.”

If you submitted a pitch last year and ultimately weren’t selected, feel free to recycle that video, she added. In a world where funding isn’t easy to come by, Nuñez said, the goal of this program is to offer business and startup founders a path to funding that doesn’t include jumping through multiple hoops.

“We are trying to make it as simple as possible,” Nuñez said. “This isn’t a lot of money, in the grand scheme of things. It’s not all of what Black businesses need to be receiving, and all kinds of business should be a lot more than what we’re providing, [but] what we’re trying to provide right now is just a brief peace of mind.”

So if you’re a Black startup and or business owner and could use an influx of cash to fix something or acquire something your company needs, submit a video pitch to Ascender by Mar. 4, 2024.

“The whole purpose is that we don’t want people to be spending many, many hours to submit a two minute video. That defeats the purpose,” Nuñez said, noting that you should always equate effort to the amount of dollars you’re receiving. “So don’t spend a whole week planning for this. Just the answers to these questions: What do you do? Why are you special?”

Apply for a mini grant