In April 2020, Washington distributed $10 million to businesses navigating the pandemic, the first of many rounds of grant funding delivered by the state.   

The Working Washington grant program was established to get money to small businesses overlooked by federal COVID relief efforts, with officials calling on the Department of Commerce to emphasize “historically disadvantaged” and BIPOC businesses.    

Crosscut filed records requests for the individual grants, finding large corporate chains among the recipients. 

In this episode, host Maleeha Syed speaks with reporter Brandon Block, who recently published a story on these findings, about where the relief dollars went – and if the state made good on its plan to reach small and historically disadvantaged businesses. 

Read more about Crosscut's analysis of Working Washington here. 

---

Credits

Host/Producer: Maleeha Syed and Sara Bernard

Reporter: Brandon Block

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

---

If you would like to support Crosscut, go to crosscut.com/membership. In addition to supporting our events and our daily journalism, members receive complete access to the on-demand programming of Seattle’s PBS station, KCTS 9.