Help EABA Keep Moving Forward!
Donation protected
The East Atlanta Business Association started discussions about rebuilding our organization in January of 2019. In order to build a successful organization we have been working with a Community Development Consultant Jennifer Ohme with idealDESIGN,inc, which we have supported paying for through memberships, sponsored events, donations from city leaders such as Natalyn Archibong, and the City of Atlanta Department of Planning through our partnership with Atlanta Main Street.
We started collecting memberships in January of 2020 after a year of planning and we have now accumulated over 60 members, but obviously this was shortly before a global pandemic caused a severe economic crisis in our community.
When COVID19 hit, we knew that our budget was going to be impacted as we stopped our attempts to gain new members and started focusing on providing as much information to assist our current business community, without regards to membership status. During the first few months of COVID19, we supported all East Atlanta businesses:
- Sent hundreds of emails providing information to assist all business owners with items like SBA Economic Disaster Loans, Paycheck Protection Program Loans, Invest Atlanta Loans, and other local and national fundraising opportunities.
- Created a spreadsheet to help customers keep track of businesses open and special offers that was widely used by the residents of East Atlanta for over 4 months.
- Check out our blog with all of the resources available.
During 2020, EABA has worked to officially form our 501 c(6) organization as well as focus on projects that we knew would help our community. Some of these projects have included:
- Atlanta Main Street Fellowship: A two year program that transforms National Main Street’s key elements of Design, Organization, Preservation, and Economic Development to urban neighborhood commercial districts like East Atlanta. We are joined by Sweet Auburn, West End and Westview. This fellowship is giving us a foundation for future funding and master plan.
- Returning crosswalks to Glenwood Ave in the village.
- Dedicated drop off locations for Uber/Lyft in the commercial district.
- Organizing groups of concerned neighbors to focus on the preservation of The Madison Theatre, holding numerous meetings with the community as well as organizations interested in helping with preservation.
- Creating public safety groups to focus on East Atlanta Village security with focuses on 911 Call Accountability, Camera Mapping, Property Owner Support, and communication with the City Council and Atlanta Police Department.
- Held dozens of virtual meetings starting immediately in April for the benefit of our business owners with safety in mind.
- Assisted with feedback to Invest Atlanta for their Business Continuity Loan Fund.
- Supported our local business community constantly with information and access to educational resources.
- Started working on antiracism programs for the EABA board and members.
- Created organizational and neighborhood branding.
- Managed and communicated filming in EAV which produces income for both EABA and EACA.
- Continue to support member businesses with social media posts which has increased our reach by over 100 new followers.
So, what do we want? Well with COVID19, as expected our budget was impacted due to a reduction in businesses able to join the business association. So if you are a business feel free to head over to the East Atlanta Business Association website and join. We know that we have a ton of projects in the queue and want to be able to get through the next few months before our membership kicks back up and for that we need East Atlanta support. We know it’s a hard time for a lot of you, so if you can’t help feel free to share so we can get the word out.
We have a few other ideas to raise funds we are excited to show you in the next few weeks and months so if you are unable to give now, we will have other opportunities coming soon.
We started collecting memberships in January of 2020 after a year of planning and we have now accumulated over 60 members, but obviously this was shortly before a global pandemic caused a severe economic crisis in our community.
When COVID19 hit, we knew that our budget was going to be impacted as we stopped our attempts to gain new members and started focusing on providing as much information to assist our current business community, without regards to membership status. During the first few months of COVID19, we supported all East Atlanta businesses:
- Sent hundreds of emails providing information to assist all business owners with items like SBA Economic Disaster Loans, Paycheck Protection Program Loans, Invest Atlanta Loans, and other local and national fundraising opportunities.
- Created a spreadsheet to help customers keep track of businesses open and special offers that was widely used by the residents of East Atlanta for over 4 months.
- Check out our blog with all of the resources available.
During 2020, EABA has worked to officially form our 501 c(6) organization as well as focus on projects that we knew would help our community. Some of these projects have included:
- Atlanta Main Street Fellowship: A two year program that transforms National Main Street’s key elements of Design, Organization, Preservation, and Economic Development to urban neighborhood commercial districts like East Atlanta. We are joined by Sweet Auburn, West End and Westview. This fellowship is giving us a foundation for future funding and master plan.
- Returning crosswalks to Glenwood Ave in the village.
- Dedicated drop off locations for Uber/Lyft in the commercial district.
- Organizing groups of concerned neighbors to focus on the preservation of The Madison Theatre, holding numerous meetings with the community as well as organizations interested in helping with preservation.
- Creating public safety groups to focus on East Atlanta Village security with focuses on 911 Call Accountability, Camera Mapping, Property Owner Support, and communication with the City Council and Atlanta Police Department.
- Held dozens of virtual meetings starting immediately in April for the benefit of our business owners with safety in mind.
- Assisted with feedback to Invest Atlanta for their Business Continuity Loan Fund.
- Supported our local business community constantly with information and access to educational resources.
- Started working on antiracism programs for the EABA board and members.
- Created organizational and neighborhood branding.
- Managed and communicated filming in EAV which produces income for both EABA and EACA.
- Continue to support member businesses with social media posts which has increased our reach by over 100 new followers.
So, what do we want? Well with COVID19, as expected our budget was impacted due to a reduction in businesses able to join the business association. So if you are a business feel free to head over to the East Atlanta Business Association website and join. We know that we have a ton of projects in the queue and want to be able to get through the next few months before our membership kicks back up and for that we need East Atlanta support. We know it’s a hard time for a lot of you, so if you can’t help feel free to share so we can get the word out.
We have a few other ideas to raise funds we are excited to show you in the next few weeks and months so if you are unable to give now, we will have other opportunities coming soon.
Organizer
Nate Minor
Organizer
Atlanta, GA
