Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook - Flipbook - Page 80
businesses — more than 4.1 million, comprising nearly half of the state’s total employment.101 A business is defined as “small”
based on the SBA size standards. 102 Depending on the industry, a “small” business can range in employee size from one to 1,500.
Specific challenges to efectively engaging the small business community in preparedness include the complexity and diversity
of the small business base and the limited capacity of business owners.
Complexity of the small business base. The 4.1 million small businesses in California are significantly diversified, with
1.2 million representing self-employed minorities and approximately 1.3 million firms owned by women. These businesses are
spread across California’s vast territory, which comprises a multitude of regions, each with its own unique composition and
mix of cultures. Given this expansive diversity, it can be challenging to devise a one-size-fits-all approach to small business
engagement; such engagement eforts are expensive and dificult to deliver consistently statewide. It is typically more efective
for each region or community to create its own small business outreach program that is scaled appropriately for its partner
network, local resources, and staf.
Limited capacity of small business owners. The vast majority of businesses — more than 3.4 million — are sole
proprietorships or very small businesses. Their lower number of employees implies a limited capacity for nonbusiness-related
activity such as training, education, or community volunteerism. This limited capacity becomes further constrained during
disasters, when a business owner may be preoccupied with immediate, urgent issues of personal safety and property.
The ability to quickly ramp up preparedness competency is critical to resiliency, disaster response, and recovery. The diversity
of the business community, the shifing trends of information intake, and their limited capacity all hinder the ability to efectively
scale preparedness competencies for small business owners. To be efective, preparedness planning needs to be in the
business owner’s language, available in multimedia formats, and adaptable to an owner’s busy schedule. Inviting small business
participation in the local or state hazard mitigation planning process provides an opportunity to encourage greater awareness
of and engagement in preparedness planning.
To be efective, preparedness planning needs to be in the business owner’s language,
available in multimedia formats, and adaptable to an owner’s busy schedule.
This efort could begin with the establishment of a local small business council and the inclusion of the council in the hazard
mitigation planning process. In lieu of the formation or expansion of such groups, planning task forces could conduct regional
listening sessions, post drafs of the plans’ economic development section for input, or leverage the many publicly and privately
funded technical assistance providers for small businesses in the state to conduct webinars and small forums with their small
business clients to gather feedback on plans.
One way that a community can increase its ability to meet the immediate needs of its impacted small business community
is to include in its Local Hazard Mitigation Plan an analysis of the composition of its small businesses. As referenced in
Chapter 7, hazard mitigation plans outline the process for identifying and implementing actions to reduce or eliminate business
losses and loss of life, property, and functions due to certain types of disasters. Such plans may include a determination
of the types of businesses, whether they consist of home-based sole proprietorships, retail and restaurants operations,
manufacturers, professional services or others, along with language preferences, employee size, average annual revenue, and
other data. This information could be obtained from a local economic developer, local chamber of commerce, or small business
technical assistance provider operating in the region.
To streamline the process, local government and economic developers may want to replicate the business intake information of
SBA Form 641,103 which is the standard intake form for small businesses seeking one-on-one mentorship from a federal resource
provider. By capturing key small business data prior to a disaster, government oficials can quickly work to ofer or provide access
101
https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/30141145/Small-Business-Economic-Profile-CA.pdf
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-13/part-121
103
https://www.sba.gov/document/sba-form-641-us-small-business-administration-counseling-information-form
102
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CALED | Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook
