Funding for Small Business

Much work goes on quietly behind the scenes, involving dedicated community partners who volunteer many hours to further Greene County's development. Every now and then, the results of all that labor become apparent.

Such is the case with this week's award of funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Business Enterprise Grant (RBEG) program.

It all started with Greene County becoming one of Indiana's initial pilot communities to launch the HomeTown Competitiveness (HTC) initiative. The original HTC has four "pillar" (community support mechanisms) of Youth, Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Philanthropy.

Here in Greene County, we've now added Tourism as a fifth pillar because it has county-wide impact and involves county-wide partners. Each of these pillars interacts with and supports the others, with the overall goals of community development and economic prosperity.

GCEDC is the lead agency for the work of the Entrepreneurship pillar, as it involves business development. Working together with other organizations, agencies and individuals, we formed task forces to address entrepreneurship training and business funding mechanisms.

The training group looked at a) ways to increase the linkages between business and education so as to increase student interest in starting a business (locally, of course); b) making available free and low-cost training opportunities and resources to support business start-ups and small business expansions. Check out the Web site at www.gcedc.us/business for a free step-by-step guide to starting a business.

The funding group explored a number of grant and loan programs that could provide potential fund sources for entrepreneurs. As part of this effort, the group determined Greene County needed a revolving loan fund and the USDA-RBEG program looked the most promising source of funds to get it started. So, we set about preparing to submit an application.

In addition to "making our case" in the application (explaining why we need the money more than other communities need it for their programs), in order to qualify, the community needed to provide a local match of funds. This means we had to match a certain percentage of the grant monies we were requesting with funds from local sources. Fortunately, two local sponsors, MainSource Bank and Crane Federal Credit Union, agreed to provide $2,000 each, so we were able to commit to a 10% match, our $4,000 to the grant's $40,000.

Having now been successful in being awarded the grant, Greene County has a total of $44,000 with which to create a revolving loan fund. This provides an additional funding resource to which a potential or existing business owner can apply for a loan, even if they've been denied by a standard financial institution.

Now, the Entrepreneurship task force still needs to determine how best to get the word out to those looking to start or expand a business and, also, the most efficient process for handling loan applications.

In the meantime, if you're interested in getting a loan and would like to be notified when the applications are available, we prefer you e-mail your contact information to admin@gcedc.us.

If you don't have Internet access, please mail your info to: GCEDC, P.O. Box 7, Linton, Ind., 47441. We request no phone calls, please.

Joan is the executive director at Greene County Economic Development Corporation and can be reached at (812) 847-4500 or jbethell@gcedc.us .