Facebook is bringing its Community Boost program to Denver this summer. The week-long program will focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and job seekers grow their business and develop new digital skills they need to compete in Colorado’s new economy.

Since 2011 Facebook has invested more than $1 billion to support small businesses, but we wanted to do more to support local communities across America. The company will be visiting 30 U.S. cities in 2018, you can learn more about Community Boost here: Community Boost

In addition, research conducted by Morning Consult and co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Facebook suggests small businesses’ use of social media is creating new opportunities.

In Colorado the research found that:

56% of SMBs in Colorado surveyed agree that Facebook is an essential tool for their business
42% of SMBs surveyed in Colorado say that Facebook has helped them hire additional employees to work at their business
55% of SMBs surveyed in Colorado believe that Facebook allows me to find customers in other cities, states or countries

70% of SMBs surveyed in Colorado believe an individual’s digital and social media skills are important when hiring, more than those who think where an individual went to school is important

Denver small business community is an important part of the region's economy:

60,490 SMBs in Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO MSA (as of 2013) [SBA MSA source] 572,546 SMBs in Colorado (As of 2016) [source]
Unemployment rate of 2.8% with approximately 1,564,600 people employed (as of Nov 2017) [source], with approximately 2,939,100 people employed (as of Nov 2017) [source]
The Colorado metropolitan area ranks 45th out of 100 MSAs for average level of digital skills, 72.9% of jobs demanded at least medium digital skills [source]

To share your thoughts and stay up to date with the latest city announcements, news and program schedules visit facebook.com/communityboost.