California State Small Business Loan Guarantee Program

Of the programs and services provided by the seven Financial Development Corporations to California’s businesses and nonprofits, the state’s Small Business Loan Guarantee Program, or SBLGP, is the flagship initiative. Originating in 1968, this program each year helps hundreds of small businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, microbusinesses and the self-employed obtain loans from banks and other lenders at moments when they might otherwise be faced with an application denial due to lack of collateral, operating history and or other financial impediments, through its Small Business Finance Center at IBank and the center’s Financial Development Corporation’s statewide offices with this program to repay the majority of a bank loan if a business defaults, causing lenders to be more likely to loan funds to a business they might have denied. An approved bank loan provides money that is vital not only for a business’s initiation or expansion, but for survival at a time when many are struggling out from under the economic devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Loans that are guaranteed by the state through the SBLGP may be used for working capital, tenant improvements, business acquisition, equipment purchases, bridge financing, construction, real estate acquisition, and virtually all business purposes.

Use of Funds

Proceeds must be utilized in California, and for any standard business purpose, such as expansion into new facilities, the purchase of new equipment, or development of a new market.