Chase and LivingSocial are running “Mission: Small Business^SM,” a new grant program offering up to $3 million to small business owners nationwide (that’s us!). They have also garnered the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to help announce the program and to drive small business engagement and participation. This program will award up to 12 individual grants of $250,000 to provide small businesses (us!) with capital and innovative marketing resources needed to make a positive impact on their business.

The grant program is open to small business owners who have been in business for at least two years (check) and have fewer than 100 employees (check). Each business will be required to answer questions about why their business is unique, outline a proposed plan for utilizing the grant to grow their business and describe how the business is involved with its community. We are in the process of writing our essays; we’ve nearly finished our rough drafts and are getting ready to move on to editing. We want to put our best foot forward, after all!

According to the press release from Chase and LivingSocial “The program aims to find innovative small business owners and provide them with the capital to help execute a business plan for growth.” We believe that we are exactly the type of business for which this program was developed! Now we just need to make sure that we get the prerequisite votes and that we present our case eloquently enough to convince the panel of judges of our merit. No pressure!

You can get involved

by clicking the “Support” button at missionsmallbusiness.com and voting for Social Savvy Geek. Each business must receive at least 250 votes to be considered for a grant. Voting is only open through June 30, 2012.

Here’s How:

• Go to missionsmallbusiness.com
• Click Log In & Support
• Type Social Savvy Geek into the business name field
• Click Search
• Click Vote
• Click Share Vote

Optionally, you may share the link to vote via Facebook and Twitter. If you haven’t already, it’s also a great time to swing by and LIKE our Facebook page.

Chase and LivingSocial expect to announce the grant recipients by September 15, 2012. In the meanwhile, we’ll keep you posted about our progress and take the opportunity to share more information that we’re including in our application. They want to know how we’re participating in our community and what we plan to do to ensure stability and long term growth. Those are excellent questions! We already know the answers (mostly), but realize that we haven’t shared as much of what we do behind the scenes as we probably should… we don’t do charity to be seen, but to do good, and typically try not to shift the focus to ourselves when the mission is to help others, but why can’t we do both?

Please vote for Social Savvy Geek and spread the word! Right now we are counting on you.

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Want to tell us you voted? We are waiting to hear from you! Please leave us a comment.