As we close in on 2 years operating under a global pandemic it’s important to take a look at what we’ve accomplished and where we can best make an impact moving forward.

Bricks Need Mortar was born from the pandemic to bring our small businesses together in community over competition, to increase visibility and be seen by both, policy makers and customers. We advocate for smart policy and much needed supports for this community, the backbone of our economy.

As a support organization Bricks Need Mortar’s mission is to provide wrap-around support for your small businesses beginning with increased visibility to your small businesses. It can be easy to overlook our accomplishments as our focus is on you. Wrapping up another difficult year, we take note of our achievements to build upon them and best serve you as we continue to forge forward in 2022.

1.- We worked with Oregon Representative Nosse and our partners at Oregon Small Businesses United (OSBU) to successfully pass legislation to extend the repayment deadline for the deferred commercial repayment period to allow for more time for federal relief dollars to reach your small businesses.

2.- We hosted a call with Sen Ron Wyden and Bricks Need Mortar members to share the immediate and longterm needs of our members. We continue to stay engaged with Sen Wyden’s staff following up on your requests.

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3.- We partnered with Kuto to create the first of its kind alternative to corporate gift cards, a single gift card that can be used at now over 400 small businesses. In our 2020 Portland Pledge Holiday campaign we heard from small business supporters that they wanted to give a universal small business gift card where people had a variety of choices of where it can be spent. We found that partner and made it happen.

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4.- We proposed a stimulus program to give federal dollars to Portlanders that could only be spent at small businesses. With the City of Portland receiving Millions of dollars in CARES ACT and ARPA funding we made sure that as much of this funding would go to our
small businesses. In September we worked with partners BBPDX, PSU, Kuto and City of Portland to successfully deploy $30K in stimulus to PSU students to spend only in small businesses. This program was successful and will extend into 2022.

5.- We serve on task force & action tables and engage with policy makers at the City, County, State and Federal levels advocating for and representing your small businesses and fighting for equitable access to capital, commercial rent relief, replenishing grant programs and sharing perspective on meaningful policy action.

6.- Working with the Governor’s office and OHA to deploy $10K in small business gift card incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated.

7.- Delivering timely learning sessions and panel discussions to help improve your efforts, efficiencies and impact to your bottom line.

8.- Conducting surveys and sharing easy to digest infographic data on the health of our small business community. We share these with policy makers and with you so you know where you stand in relation to your peers, noting the ever changing environment and realities of conducting business in these times. Next survey out next week.

9.- Bringing Small Businesses together for the Small Shops Big Hearts holiday campaign that included robust paid social media, 5 billboards around the city, OPB radio ads, support from Travel Portland, Venture Portland and our hotels. We surveyed participating businesses and have learned a lot about how and why it worked very well for many and what needs to happen to make it work well for everyone, which will inform our focus for professional development offerings in 2022. Stay tuned for our upcoming series of events.

10.- Conducted coaching sessions in group and one on one to provide ongoing support and experienced perspectives to your businesses. We’ve learned a lot and as a membership organization we’re accountable only to you and your small businesses. As a member driven organization, we are more swift and agile and that’s how we are effective in moving the needle for this community. All of this work was made possible by everyone who chips in as a Bricks Need Mortar member to be in community to strengthen our ecosystem of brick and mortar businesses.

We’ve learned a lot and as a membership organization we’re accountable only to you and your small businesses. As a member driven organization we are more swift and agile and that’s how we are effective in moving the needle for this community. All of this work was made possible by everyone who chips in as a Bricks Need Mortar member to be in community to strengthen our ecosystem of brick and mortar businesses.

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Today we’re sharing feedback on The PDXSOS Portland Pledge Holiday Campaign.

The Portland Pledge was created to send a strong and loud message to shop small and local, even when shopping from home.

We are building on The Portland Pledge all year around!

This Thursday we will be launching our partnership with Think NW (formerly The Portland Advertising Federation), to provide pro bono marketing coaching to our members. Additionally, we’re working with Think NW on a fund available to our members to cover professional brand and marketing services.

Business Oregon is making $100M in grants available to address unpaid commercial rents. The program will open for applications on March 8, 2021. The application portal will be open for two weeks, and all eligible applications received will be put into a lottery selection system to determine which will move on for grant approval.  The application process will require both the tenant and the landlord to contribute and sign documents. The landlord will complete the initial online application. If you have deferred payments due to your landlord, we encourage you to contact your landlord now with plans to apply. Please contact us if you are needing assistance in moving forward with your landlord and your application.   More information can be found at this link. Applications will open March 8th at the same link.

Bricks Need Mortar fights for equitable and sensible commercial rent relief and real estate reform. Check out Bricks Need Mortar founder Sarah Shaoul’s recent op-ed in The Portland Business Journal. The piece is copied below for those who are unable to access the paywall. Please also see urgent action for Tuesday’s hearing on the extension of the commercial rent repayment deadline beyond March 31st.

“In this pandemic, I have spent the greater part of my year advising and helping small brick and mortar commercial tenants renegotiate their leases. I’ve met with landlords who have made the calculations and chose to work with their tenants by accepting a percentage of sales, forgiving rent, or sharing the economic burden of the pandemic with their tenants in some way. But for many tenants, the greatest challenge is longstanding real estate law and the personal guarantee in their commercial lease.

A great majority of commercial leases require a Personal Guarantee, which states that a tenant is responsible for the full rent for the lease term, regardless of viruses and other impediments to conducting business. Let’s say an owner opened a restaurant last March with a five-year lease for which they paid $4,000 a month in base rent. If they found themselves ineligible for PPP, they would have exhausted their start-up funds in their first six months with virtually no revenue, putting them on the hook for $240,000 plus NNN and the landlord’s operating expenses, which often include taxes, property insurance, and common area maintenance.

And while there are landlords exercising great ethical responsibility by sharing the burden, there are those landlords who shame, intimidate, and refuse to negotiate with their tenants because the personal guarantee means there’s nothing to bring to the table to negotiate with tenants.

With mandated closures and even the eviction moratorium, landlords are to be paid in full by March 31, 2021, or their tenants can be evicted. Legislators are focused on making the landlords and the banks who hold their mortgages whole. PPP helps with wages, rent and other expenses, but what about that lost revenue?

Even if Federal relief reimburses or addresses, say, 18 months of rent for commercial tenants, the landlords will be made whole. But how will our small businesses recover 18 months of significantly reduced revenue? We can waive or pay their rent, but they will never recover the lost revenue that occurred due to closures and significantly decreased capacity.

Here’s what we need:
1- We need a cap on the Personal Guarantee to bring tenants and their landlords to the table to share the burden of this crisis with our small businesses.
2- We need federal relief that fully covers the rents of small businesses that have experienced a 25%-plus decline from March 2020 until we achieve herd immunity through vaccinations.
3- We need Covid specific bankruptcy protection that will allow small businesses the ability to close without the threat of losses of any personal assets.
4- We need greater access to capital for people of color and more opportunities for BIPOC and women to qualify for commercial property loans.
5- We need to prioritize incentives and tax breaks for small businesses, our job creators, alongside, or better yet, before, tax abatements and credits to developers and property owners.
6- Sensible and equitable real estate law reform.

Back to the recent snowstorm. In that key weekend, many businesses weathered significant losses and declines in revenue because they simply didn’t have staff who could walk to work.

If we look at this economic recovery as an opportunity to address social and economic disparities, we must put in place instruments that help us move beyond opportunity hoarding, including imbalanced real estate law.”

Sarah Shaoul is co-founder of the Portland small business advocate Bricks Need Mortar.