PDC Recorded Webinars
COVID-19 RELIEF STATEWIDE SMALL BUSINESS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Recorded June 25, 2020
Learn how you can help the businesses in your Main Street or Elm Street district benefit from the PA Small Business grant program. Please join the members from the CDFI Coalition – David A. Kahley, President & CEO, The Progress Fund and Ed Geiger, Edge Strategic Consulting, as they lead us through the newly created $225 million DCED program for COVID-19 relief to small businesses being distributed through Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) across the state, working with the PA Downtown Center to provide communication assistance. Grants may be awarded up to $50,000 to Main Street Businesses and Historically Disadvantaged Businesses with 25 or fewer employees, to cover operating expenses for the duration of the shutdown and the transition period to re-opening, COVID-related technical assistance and training, and debt payment relief for CDFI Pennsylvania borrowers.
UPDATES TO INFORM YOUR COMMUNITY FROM DCED, PEMA, AND DOH ON COVID-19 DISASTER RESPONSE AND RECOVERY
Recorded June 16, 2020
#READYFORPRESERVATION: TOOLS AND TIPS TO SUPPORT YOUR DOWNTOWN’S RECOVERY AND REVITALIZATION
Recorded May 28,2020
Pennsylvania downtowns are the economic, social, and cultural heart of many communities. Downtown buildings, businesses and activities often reflect a community’s history, values and economic core as well as the aspirations of local leaders and community members. Today, Pennsylvania downtowns are facing the daunting task of responding to the current economic havoc and planning for future challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of those efforts, there are many ways in which the application of a traditional downtown design ethic can be appropriately and thoughtfully integrated into recovery efforts.
Join the Pennsylvania Downtown Center and staff from the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office for a one-hour webinar to explore different ways your community can sensitively manage the changes we face as a result of the pandemic’s impact. Based upon the Main Street principles of Economic Vitality and Design, this webinar is focused on providing realistic and practical suggestions for communities of all shapes and sizes whether they are in the reaction, response, or recovery phase. Among topics to be covered will be messaging, vacancy management or prevention, Historic Architectural Review Board or Preservation Commission activities and more.
Speakers include:
• Mary Tate, Pennsylvania Downtown Center
• Cory Kegerise/PA SHPO Eastern Region Community Preservation Coordinator
• Bryan Van Sweden/PA SHPO Central Region Community Preservation Coordinator
• Bill Callahan/PA SHPO Western Region Community Preservation Coordinator
PA-SHPO-Annual-Report-for-2019
Ready For Preservation Additional-Information
ARTS & CULTURE IN A TIME OF CRISIS
Recorded May 5, 2020
Presenters are Sarah Merritt, Director of Pennsylvania Creative Communities at Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Patrick Fisher, Executive Director at Erie Arts & Culture.
CENTER FOR REGIONAL AGRICULTURE, FOOD, AND TRANSFORMATION (CRAFT) AT CHATHAM UNIVERSITY
Recorded May 13, 2020
Please Join CRAFT’s* Food Innovation Lab manager, Nicolette Spudic, to learn more about the Lab’s mission, capacity, and how we can help your businesses thrive. Topics include a Regional Food Systems Data briefing, our Western PA Foodways collection and a round table discussion on best practices related COVID response.
Through the work of the Food Innovation Lab CRAFT can provide technical assistance to food-based businesses in various stages of the business life cycle. Whether the need is for targeted, specific deliverables such as a menu revamp or more nuanced assistance such as start-up coaching, the Food Innovation Lab can provide your food-based business with what it needs to thrive.
EVENT MODIFICATION & FUTURE TRENDS TO CONSIDER
Recorded May 12, 2020
Discussion on how communities are modifying their events, in anticipation of the slow opening and recovery:
- Naomi Naylor will share the changes in planning that they’re trying to anticipate in Quakertown.
- Mark Ickes will share what DMO’s are anticipating and looking to for trends to expect in events, tourism and hospitality.
- Lauren Zumbrun will share what Downtown Hershey has already done to modify some of their events
5 Sponsorship Myths and How to Bust Them
Event Modification & Future Trends
Event Modification & Future Trends_N. Naylor
Event Modification & Future Trends_L. Zumbrun
GIFT CARDS & ONLINE BUSINESS PRESENCE: PROGRAMS, INITIATIVES, & INCENTIVES
Recorded April 14, 2020
Please join your fellow revitalization experts from across the commonwealth as they share their programs and incentives for increasing online business presence in their Main Street programs.
IMPLEMENTING LOCAL GRANT AND REVOLVING LOAN FUND PROGRAMS
Recorded April 23, 2020
How do we quickly deploy funds into our downtown’s? Managers are faced with having to explore new ways of doing things. Hear from four managers as to how they began on the road of creating grant opportunities and a revolving loan fund and if the results were what they expected. Mary Tate of PDC will review best practices and the steps for developing a local revolving loan fund.
PATRONICITY: CROWDFUNDING TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES & MAIN STREETS
How main streets, downtowns and small businesses are utilizing donation/reward based crowdfunding during the Covid-19 crisis and community members are responding with an outpour of support.
STABILIZING OUR CORRIDORS – COMMUNITY CROWDFUNDING DURING COVID-19
Recorded April 15, 2020
In this presentation, Topiltzin Gomez (Chief of Staff of Honeycomb Credit) will help members better understand the ecosystem of COVID-19 small business financial relief resources and discuss the unique role that crowdfunding and investment crowdfunding can play in helping stabilize our Main Street communities.
Honeycomb Credit is an investment crowdfunding platform based in Pittsburgh, PA that enables everyday people to make debt investments in local businesses. In response to COVID-19, Honeycomb Credit launched a crowdfunded Small Business Relief Loan program to unlock low interest crowdfunded loans to businesses affected by the economic shutdown across the Commonwealth and beyond.
VIRTUAL FIRST FRIDAY EVENTS
Recorded April 21, 2020
In response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, revitalization organizations throughout the Commonwealth are moving their First Fridays online. Join us to learn about Virtual First Fridays in Downtown Lebanon, Downtown York, and Philadelphia’s Old City District.
VOLUNTEERING WHEN TRADITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES ARE NOT AVAILABLE
Recorded September 29, 2020
What does PIVOT mean when we talk about volunteers? The session will cover an overview of the shifts in volunteering from COVID; trends in skills based volunteering and new ways of connecting with volunteers. In response to members requests, PDC is pleased to host Karen Smith, CEO, Volunteer Center of the Lehigh Valley. In this role, Karen focuses on developing programs and services to enhance the nonprofit organizations and the relationships with the business community.
