Highland, Illinois. Last week, Governor JB Pritzker released industry-specific guidelines to assist with the safe re-opening of businesses as the state progresses into the next phase of the Restore Illinois plan. Statewide, chambers of commerce collaborated on task forces and solicited information from their hundreds of thousands of business members to provide input on these guidelines. 

In fact, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) consulted with over 200 businesses, industry leaders, chambers of commerce, industry associations and trade representatives to consider unique aspects and operations. With thousands of people returning to work in the following industries: retail, offices, manufacturing, barbershops and salons, summer programs, various outdoor recreation activities and bars and restaurants for outdoor dining, it was imperative that all voices in Illinois were heard. 
 

Governor Pritzker has released guidelines for businesses to reopen in Phase 3 of Restore Illinois. Find them here.

The program is designed to help credit flow to medium-sized and small businesses that were in good financial condition, but now need loans to help until they have recovered from, or adapted to, the impacts of the pandemic. (as of today, the program is NOT available to non-profits) 

Loans originated under the program have several features that will help businesses facing challenges. The program offers 4-year loans, with floating rates, and principal and interest payments deferred during the first year to assist businesses facing temporary cash flow interruptions.

The loans range in size from $500,000 to $200 million. Here are slides you can review. There will be a question and answer session June 3.

 Kindred Healthcare, LLC (“Kindred”) and Anderson Healthcare have begun construction on an acute rehabilitation institute being built on Anderson Healthcare’s Goshen Campus in Edwardsville, Illinois. This institute will be the first freestanding rehabilitation institute in the Central and Southern regions of Illinois.

Anderson Rehabilitation Institute is a joint venture between Kindred and Anderson Healthcare and is expected to open in Q2 2021. 

2020 will go down as a once in a lifetime legislative session. What started off with promise of a robust legislative agenda, was placed largely on hold with the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Pre-pandemic, the year was shaping up to be mainly about energy and technology.  Like every other aspect of society, the disease reshaped priorities and the last week of session focused on health care and employment law issues. Despite these challenges, the Chamber was able to help preserve essential capital appropriations, prevent pharmaceutical price control, negotiate favorable workers' compensation and unemployment insurance changes in an unfavorable climate, prevent the business killing Clean Energy Jobs Act, and saw the first override of a Governor Pritzker veto.   Click on the full report below to learn more.
 
The 2020 Illinois Chamber End of Session Report can be viewed here.

On May 18th, City Council officials approved a grant program to incentivize Highland businesses to implement e-Commerce solutions to facilitate purchases on their website. The Industrial Development Commission and Highland Communication Services partnered to launch the program, allowing businesses a grant of $500 to be used toward the cost of e-Commerce implementation.

Any brick-and-mortar Highland business that does not offer an e-Commerce option is eligible to apply. Once an application is submitted, applicants will be notified of approval after verification of the absence of an e-Commerce solution on the applicant’s website. The applicant will have three months to deploy the solution and, once the solution is verified, will receive the $500 grant. The Highland Chamber of Commerce has offered to provide guidance to businesses looking to implement e-Commerce.

The grant application can be accessed on the Industrial Development Commission’s page at https://www.highlandil.gov/government/boards_and_commissions/industrial_development_commission.php 

For more information, please contact Director of Technology & Innovation Angela Imming (aimming@highlandil.gov) or Economic Development Coordinator Mallord Hubbard (mhubbard@highlandil.gov).

In response to the City of Highland's E-Commerce Grants, many businesses have reached out to the Chamber offering their services. Here's a few companies that can help you out!

DIGITALARTZ

Digitalartz offers Wordpress-based website services! These include initial development, maintenance, updating, and integration with various e-commerce and SEO plugins. Give us a call at 618.651.1500 or send us an email through our website at www.digitalartz.us.

BLOCKPLANEDESIGN

blockplanedesigns was born out of one man’s desire to be an influential creative agency, tirelessly serving clients, relying on years of industry experience and innate abilities to output innovative results for companies, individuals and organizations. blockplanedesigns will help you explore and recognize your business’ unique goals and aspirations and then create extraordinary resolutions to help you achieve them!

CONTACT BRIAN KNOBLOCH

BOOSTLINK

Website design is an art – combining beautiful design concepts with emerging internet technologies! Since most people start their buying process with online research, a successful business simply must have a fantastic website. With that in mind, our talented designers and web savvy coders will work with you to make sure that your website showcases all aspects of your business, contains a variety of information about your products & services, is easy for users to navigate, and will help ensure your search rankings. 

In addition to website design, we also offer website hosting, email accounts, domain name registration, form submissions, SSL Certificate, shopping carts / e-commerce, and MySQL databases. 

Having a ‘regular’ website these days just is not enough. With most people using some kind of mobile device (smart phones or tablets), it’s now critical that your website is “optimized” for the smaller screens on these devices. Not only will the design be optimized, but the content & graphics will be optimized for faster load times, when bandwidth is lower. 

There is no need for you to spend extra time during development stages of these sites. We simply take your current website and convert it to a mobile version. 

Ready to let your clients interact with your business? Even though social outlets are aimed towards ‘personal’ interaction, a growing number of businesses are finding marketing opportunities on these social websites. Consistent dedication to keeping the social sites updated with current comments is critical, but we can help with that too! 

As with everything else, there are a variety of options for you to consider. What social outlets will best help drive clients to your business? Do you want a social media feed on your website, or just a link to the social page? We will help you through all of these tough decisions. 

Give us a call for a FREE CONSULTATION at 618-402-8775 or check out our website: https://boostlink.net/website-design/

DATAWORKS GROUP “Fast Start E-commerce” Initiative:

-          Purpose:  To assist local Highland businesses to engage in e-commerce to maintain and support their business during the currently exceptionally challenging Covid-19 pandemic business environment.

-          Key action:  To match the municipal grant toward costs of developing and servicing a custom e-commerce site for the participating business.  To keep the overall process simply for the business owner, this offer strives to provide a complete “soup to nuts” overall solution plan that minimizes out of pocket costs for the business with all hosting included for the first 3 months.

-          Offer period:  This program will only be offered until November 19, 2020, limited to the first 10 businesses that meet the Highland City grant requirements and are accepted by us, but may be extended at our discretion.

-          What’s included:

o   Professional quality mobile and desktop friendly e-commerce website-as-a-service

o   Extendable menu/catalog with shopping cart and checkout, or

o   (or) Appointment setting capability for businesses that require managed social distancing for in-store displays or fulfillment

o   Professional email account (e.g. @thebusinessname.com)

o   SSL security certificate to help protect business and customers’ transaction privacy

o   First 3 months of hosting service included, without subsequent obligation unless they choose to

-          There is a one-time out-of-pocket for the business of $155 to help cover up-front costs such as SSL certificates, etc., with all other costs covered by matching funds by us and the City grant to cover the estimated fair value of the total package.

-          Some other limitations may apply.  We reserve the right to accept or decline any applicant businesses at our sole discretion.

CONTACT KYU SUNG CHO