I’m Jeff Tanner, Dean of the Strome College of Business, and this is a Strome Business Minute. In June, Facebook committed one hundred million dollars to advance US-based Black businesses, artists, and nonprofits. Last week, they unveiled their plan to offer Black businesses up to forty million dollars or forty percent of the original commitment, as grants. The grants, for Black-owned businesses with fewer than fifty employees, are broken into twenty five hundred dollars in cash and fifteen hundred dollars in Facebook advertising credits and the program will be administered by Accenture. Facebook’s goal is to pump the cash out in a hurry, hoping to get all of the cash released by the end of August. The grant application process opens today and they plan to support ten thousand businesses before the program concludes. With Black-owned businesses closing at twice the rate of other small businesses, every bit helps. This has been a Strome Business Minute, presented by the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University.