The COVID-19 pandemic has had a complex effect on the region’s local economy and on the wellbeing of its minority-owned businesses. Compared to non-minority (White Non-Hispanic) in Northern Virginia, minority-owned businesses have experienced heightened risk associated with COVID-19, in part due to most being small businesses, generating less revenue, concentrated in higher-risk industries, and having constrained access to capital.
At the end of 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States, Northern Virginia was home to an estimated 128,000 minority-owned businesses—42 percent of all establishments—that included approximately 26,000 businesses with paid staff and 102,000 self-employed and family-run businesses.
As our region begins to recover from the recent pandemic, we will be challenged to support our community of minority-owned businesses and all those disproportionately impacted by the economic impacts of COVID-19. To begin this process, seven organizations representing the region’s economic development, government, and philanthropy sectors formed the Northern Virginia Minority-Owned Businesses Working Group.
The working group is composed of members from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development, the Prince William County Department of Economic Development, Arlington Economic Development, and the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership.
The working group’s, Supporting Northern Virginia’s Minority Owned Businesses report, was released on June 23rd and a webinar was hosted on June 23rd. To compliment the report, Northern Virginia Regional Commission developed an interactive dashboard that has been released today, July 15, 2021.
The dashboard highlights.
The dashboard provides a summary of the report findings, interactive data charts, and more detailed information than that found in the report, including jurisdiction level data. To track the economic recovery, the dashboard’s data will be updated on a quarterly basis by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission.