A $5 million grant awarded to Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) will support veteran and military spouse owned businesses. The competitive grant comes from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s $100 million Community Navigator Pilot Program, established as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
In receiving the grant, Syracuse has selected Iona College’s Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to help with the project, which will provide entrepreneurship education, small business technical assistance, loan preparation, access to capital and capital readiness, corporate and federal contracting and networking to veteran entrepreneurs.
“Supporting our veteran and military spouse businesses through entrepreneurship training and technical assistance is core to our mission at Iona College. We are honored to join the IVMF as a partner to do this important work over the next two years,” said Dr. Christoph Winkler, an endowed professor and founding program director of the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Iona College, which has received over $350,000 in funding for the program.