Editor’s Note: Made Possible By Community: King County Local Services is checking in with some of the winners of the first Participatory Budgeting vote to see how the funding – which the county’s new process made possible by giving voters an opportunity to choose how funds are spent in their neighborhoods – has helped.
- Grant winner: Shop Skyway
- Amount: $25,000
- Project: Funding to provide free consulting services and technical assistance to modernize Skyway businesses. This program includes services such as educational workshops, webinars, and consultations to go over best practices for how a business can operate and succeed.
- Reason funds are important: “The funds from PB helped us work with business owners without charging them anything. That is not something that typically happens in a business ecosystem,” says Principal Business Consultant Jawan Harris. “So, because of the PB funds, we were able to completely reduce any costs and any hesitation so that we could work with each business without worrying about their capital constraints. That’s where we put a lot of the money – just in our expertise and time working with each business owner. It took about 10 hours for each business, which is not a lot of time, but it was enough for us to move the needle.”
“In Skyway, in particular, this is not a well foot-trafficked area because of the infrastructure, the way it is built,” he added. “The challenges many of the businesses have here are maintaining an online presence, and then marketing and letting people know about the products and the services they have outside of just Skyway. We were able to work with business owners on exactly that. We did a lot of website design and development. We did a lot of marketing, helped with social media and training. We also did some operational things, looking at finances, just because this is such a smaller, tight-knit community.”
- Participatory Budgeting made it possible. Reaction?: “It makes me feel fantastic that, one, the community mobilized and came together to make this decision. It was, like, close to 800 ideas submitted an only about 45 got funded, so it feels really good that we know for sure. We’re not just saying it – the community backed Shop Skyway.”
King County Local 