812 businesses have gotten NC coronavirus loans. Their names are mostly secret.

A total of 8,147 businesses have requested $250 million from a state-funded small business coronavirus loan program, and so far 812 have received more than $28 million to stay afloat.

But unlike the federal Paycheck Protection Program, the Rapid Recovery Loan program isn’t disclosing the names of most businesses that received loans.

The legislature allocated $125 million in April for the Rapid Recovery Loan program, which is administered by the Golden LEAF Foundation, the N.C. Rural Center and several other partners.

According to data released by the program, 98% of the money so far has gone to businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and 63% has gone to “minority or female owned” businesses. The loans have helped retain 5,312 jobs.

“Since the program is a repayable business loan and not a grant, and due to individual confidentiality agreements that NC COVID-19 Rapid Recovery lending partners sign with small business owners at the time of their loan, we are obligated to protect the privacy and personal information of our clients,” said Todd Brantley, a spokesman for the Rural Center.

The program does release a weekly data sheet with statistics about loan recipients.

One of the loan recipients that’s been named publicly is Balsam Falls Brewing in downtown Sylva, about an hour west of Asheville.

Owner Laurie Bryson said the loan was a big help because sales fell 90% when Gov. Roy Cooper shuttered restaurants, bars and breweries in March. While some craft breweries sell bottles and cans in grocery stores, Balsam Falls sells most of its beer in its tap room. The loan helped keep brewery employees on the payroll and keep the bills paid.

“It’s really helped us keep things going until we could reopen,” Bryson said. The tap room is back open with limited capacity and extra cleaning processes. She said the Rapid Recovery Loan program was “very responsive,” and the money was available within about four weeks of her application.

So far, a total of 481 applicants have been declined for the loans, or about 17% of the 2,803 applications that have been fully processed. Brantley said most of those rejections related to the loan program’s requirement that the business would have been able to repay a similar loan prior to the pandemic.

“Most turndowns are businesses that were struggling before the crisis,” he said. “Most applicants withdraw themselves, which we believe reflects their hesitancy to take on debt as the pandemic drags on and the economic uncertainty continues.”

Businesses that didn’t get a Rapid Recovery Loan or benefit from the federal PPP will soon have a chance to apply for part of a $15 million Job Retention Grant program, which was in the legislature’s latest coronavirus relief bill.

The Department of Commerce, which is administering the program, says applications will be available starting in early August. Those grants are capped at $250,000, and they don’t have to be paid back.

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