Dance Room Collective, LLC | Application Preview
Dance Room Collective, LLC is applying for government grants to aid in their recovery from the economic impact of Covid-19. The funding will be crucial in covering essential expenses such as rent, utilities, and payroll, allowing the business to focus on saving and advertising to attract more clients. The collective aims to expand its operations by introducing a restaurant and dance lounge in the future, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Over the next five years, Friendly City Dance Room plans to increase its capacity and potentially add more locations in the tristate area. Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, the business has thrived in a low-income opportunity zone, demonstrating resilience and a commitment to community engagement through dance.
The collective differentiates itself from competitors by fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment, offering accessible and affordable dance services. Unlike traditional ballroom studios, ballet, and movement schools that often cater to a narrow demographic, Dance Room Collective embraces individuals of all backgrounds and ages. The business also recognizes that its main competition comes from local bars and restaurants, which offer food and drink but lack the unique social connection that dance can provide.
In summary, Dance Room Collective seeks grant funding to support its ongoing recovery, promote community connection through dance, and expand its services to enhance the social and cultural landscape of the area.
-
General Information
Business Registration Number: 83-2302685
Location: Harrisonburg, VA, United States
Length of Operation: 2.5
Number of Employees:
Annual Gross Income:
Annual Gross Expense:
Open to Loans: YES
-
Funding Usage
We hope to use this to continue to streamline our regrowth due to Covid’s Economic Impact on our business and community. We are scaling back up to the point that the business can be self supportive again, as it was before Covid, but now we have more expenses, and this prevents us from being able to set aside disaster savings as well as funds for expansions and even basic advertising through Facebook, Google, and even more traditional means. If we receive these grant funds, we hope to use them to cover our rent, utilities, and payroll. Allowing us to use the smaller, but growing monthly income to set aside for savings and a smaller portion for advertising.
-
Business Plan
In the next five years, Friendly City Dance Room hopes to expand to the second floor of our building with a restaurant&dance lounge, allowing the downstairs to be for events, and the upstairs to serve as a sort of fusion watering hole and cozy dance spot. Secondly, we hope to be able to fund a full building sprinkler system to allow us to maximize our capacity finally, as we are currently limited to 50 and below. Dance Room Collective as a whole hopes to expand to a dozen locations in the tristate area, and hope to have at least one more location within 5 years. Friendly City Dance Room stands as a beacon of new vision and excellence in an industry ripe for growth and new achievement. In a year, in a low income opportunity zone we managed to build a successful business in an industry typically found only in metropolitan areas such as DC Baltimore, Richmond, and others. We pivoted with Covid and managed to come out further ahead instead of further behind, some setbacks we faced, but we met them with new ideas that worked, and are still working for us today. Our impact on our community Harrisonburg has been profound, and our client base provides public feedback that proves how necessary we have been to their well-being! We are a community oriented business, our mission is to connect individuals of all backgrounds and walks of life through social interactions using dance, this mission is imperative to our nation with so much disconnection through electronics, and even more so now with a year of separation due to Covid. People are desperate for connection, and we hope to continue to serve them and enrich their lives, with your assistance that is a much brighter possibility! You can build a dream that enriches lives with us!
-
Self Identified Competition
We have no real competitors in our own industry locally, none that impact our growth, if anything our top three competitors would come from local watering holes- bars and restaurants. People want food and drink, and there is a stigma around dance, one that we have successfully dismantled for many who walk through our door, but the stigma is still strong enough to prevent some people from walking through our doors. So our biggest competitors provide something we currently only provide occasionally during special events- food and drink. But with more funding and with time and growth we would be able to take the second story of our space and make it into a kitchen/lounge to service the whole dance room. Looking inward to our industry there are three prevailing camps, all of which have been unable to dominate the market in a way we are poised to do- 1. Ballroom studios, chains such as Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire. These dance studios are notoriously stigmatizing for dance in that they charge incredibly high prices for their services, making themselves less accessible as well as failing to provide a space that is diverse and holds to the cultural roots of the dances, making it a place dominated by white individuals in the mostly upper class. We provide a space that is diverse, accessible, and affordable services with tailor made plans to allow anyone from any class to enjoy quality dance training or opportunities. Thus we provide a level of connection that cannot be found among our ballroom competitors. 2. Ballet&Movement schools. These cater primarily to two types, the very fit and the very naturally gifted younger than 30, and they often exclude individuals that fall outside those ranges. We provide a space that welcomes you to explore dance whether you are 8 or 80, and to enjoy the benefits of dance and moving well regardless of the body type you have. 3. Social/Urban independent schools or instructors. These schools like us, provide a very connection and cultural based experience of dance, however they are often known by the more vulnerable as places that lack safety and often they lack professionalism. Some schools are even known to exclude much in the way the ballet schools do, having “executive favorites” who are showered with attention while certain other students may be cut out of social interactions. We partner our emphasis on connection and culture with a business’s vested interest in ensuring all of our clients safety, inclusion, and comfort, making sure that no one who walks through our doors feels like a stranger! Outside our industry- 1. Bars, restaurants, and coffee shops. Here you can get food have eating or drinking dates, it’s a human tradition spanning the whole of our history. At the Dance Room we provide a social connection that businesses like this cannot you might never be able to comfortably interact with that stranger at the window table, you might never get to know that other regular who seems to have a completely different life style, but in our space that is exactly what you are encouraged towards! And with growth we will have even the food and drink part, squashing the unique services that our competitors in this category currently have, which we do not.
-
Contact Applicant
Subscribe to our Administrator Dashboard to gain full access to this application. Learn More
