Shuttered Venues Operators Grant Grantee Interviews

Attachment B: SVOG Evaluation Semi-Structured Interview Instrument

introduction

Thank you for taking the time to answer some brief questions about the needs of your business during the COVID-19 pandemic. We understand that you participated in the Small Business Administration’s Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) Program. The Small Business Administration is evaluating the overall impact of the program and part of the evaluation involves this brief interview.

The Small Business Administration contracted with our private research firm, 2M Research (2M), to develop and administer this interview. Our discussion should last approximately 15 minutes, though we have scheduled 30 minutes to meet so we have ample time for your comments and feedback. There are no right or wrong answers – we just want to hear about the pandemic recovery needs of your business from your perspective. You can decline to answer any questions you do not want to answer. Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you may stop at any time. There will be no negative consequences if you choose to stop or if you choose not to participate at all.

2M will ensure the confidentiality of your responses and will only report findings to SBA without identifying any individual person. Response data will be maintained by 2M and the Small Business Administration. It will not be released to other government agencies, or to other private firms.

If you have any questions about this study after this interview, please contact the study team by email at [email protected] or by phone at 1-844-503-7050 (toll-free) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. CST Monday - Friday. If you call outside of this time, please leave a message and we will return your call the following business day.

Before we begin, we would like to have your permission to audio record our discussion so that we can ensure our notes are accurate and complete. The audio recordings will be deleted once the project is complete, in October of 2023.

Can we audio record this conversation?

□ Yes

□ No

Do you have any (other) questions before we begin?

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 3245-0425. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 15 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to: U.S. Small Business Administration, Director, Records Management Division, 409 3rd St., S.W., Washington, DC 20416 and Desk Officer for the Small Business Administration, Office of Management and Budget, New Executive Building, Room 10202, Washington, DC 20503

Interview Questions and Probes

1. First, I would like to review your responses to the survey for more detail about the pandemic recovery needs you described. The last question asked, “What remaining pandemic recovery needs do you have for your business?”

[IF NOT ANSWERED IN THE SURVEY] Do you have any remaining business-related pandemic recovery needs to share?

[IF ANSWERED IN THE SURVEY] In the survey, you expressed:

[fill need from Q4]

[fill need from Q4]

[fill need from Q4]

For each of the above ask:

1. Can you say any more about [NEED 1, 2, or 3]?

2. Could SVOG have met that need? How?

3. How will you meet [NEED 1, 2, or 3] without federal support?

2. What pandemic recovery needs did you have that the SVOG funds were able to fully address?

3. Are there any other pandemic recovery needs we haven’t discussed that SVOG funds were not able to fully address? (IF NEEDED: Are there needs that you wished you could have used the SVOG funds for, but couldn’t?)

PROMPTS [IF NEEDED]:

1. Can you say more about that?

2. In what ways was the SVOG program unable to meet that need?

3. How will you meet/solve [NEED 1,2, or 3] without government assistance?

CLOSING

That concludes our interview. Thank you for your time in helping us learn more about supporting small business owners.