Category Archives: Articles

Local Program Has National Implications for Entrepreneurs

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Holly Eagleston, NM LEEP Cohort 5 Fellow

The New Mexico Lab Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (NM LEEP) has selected its fifth cohort of deep-tech innovators. The two-year fellowship, based at Los Alamos National Laboratory, supports entrepreneurs working to accelerate the commercialization of breakthrough technologies that address the nation’s most urgent energy, security, and economic challenges.

The program pairs deep-tech entrepreneurs with the unique talent and technology of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Fellows are matched with seed capital, a large network of mentors, customers, and investors to help entrepreneurs transition technology into a scalable product. The program also offers a generous stipend, health insurance, travel reimbursement, and relocation assistance.

Applications for the 2027 cohort will be accepted beginning February 28, 2026. The application period closes on May 8, 2026.

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Loans Support Childcare Center

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Architectural rendering of the new Kewa Childcare Development Center

Clearinghouse CDFI has provided loans and funding for the Kewa Childcare Development Center, a new 22,000 square foot childcare facility located in the underserved community of Santo Domingo, New Mexico. When fully operational, this transformative project will provide critical early childhood development services to the surrounding community, supporting the next generation in a region facing significant economic challenges.

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Small Businesses Gain with Year-End Giving

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Philanthropic giving is approaching $600 billion annually in the United States, and New Mexicans do their part every year to underwrite the causes that matter most to them. Often overlooked among worthy food bank and animal welfare nonprofits are organizations that promote grass-roots economic development. Nonprofit lenders that offer business assistance — LiftFund, DreamSpring, and others — rely on private giving to support and enable individual entrepreneurship in our state.

Microlenders such as these manage separate pools of private and public money, which they make available as loans and lines of credit to small businesses — especially startup businesses and those in chronically underserved communities and populations. They also support their clients’ success through other services, such as business counseling, training, and mentoring.

Thoughtful contributions — sometimes known as social investments — to any one of these organizations have a way of living indefinitely into the future.

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Buy Local to Help Your Community

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Red River, NM

Consumer studies and statistics are clear: There’s value in buying locally, especially during the holidays. Local businesses are more than twice as generous to hometown nonprofits that fulfill community-specific needs, according to the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), and they are more loyal and accountable to the people they employ and live among. Local businesses are typically small, and this sector of the economy employs about half of the private sector workforce.

Shopping locally reduces environmental impacts associated with transportation. It supports businesses that offer products and services that reflect local tastes and a community’s distinctive character.

But the best reason to spend money at a local business rather than an absentee-owned business — including during the critical holiday shopping season — is the financial recycling that results.

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NMSBA Program Improves Production

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FreshPure Waters was founded to replace single-use plastic water bottles by providing consumers with a more eco-friendly refillable bulk water option. Its system specializes in high-pH alkaline, reverse osmosis, and deionized water, all in one machine. However, the rapidly growing demand for its purified water systems outpaced its production capabilities.

FreshPure Waters applied for assistance through the New Mexico Small Business Assistance (NMSBA) Program, a unique opportunity that brings the technology and expertise of New Mexico’s national laboratories and their partners to solve problems that inhibit business growth.

The NMSBA Program paired FreshPure Waters with Wesley Eccles and Jeff Abrams, directors at New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP), to lead the initiative to optimize production, improve system maintenance, and expand market reach.

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Resilience and Credit Support Native Owned Business

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Small businesses in rural and tribal communities often lack access to affordable credit—especially during health or economic crises—putting their survival at risk. Resilience and credit from the nonprofit lender RCAC helped Native American-owned Earth & Sky Floral Designs get back to business after a health setback.

Earth & Sky Floral Designs and Gallery, LLC is a 100% Native American woman-owned business located on the Pueblo of Laguna reservation. Owned by Shayai Lucero of the Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, the business provides full-service floral arrangements for weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays and local ceremonies. Shayai operates the shop from a renovated lodge on her property and employs seasonal part-time help during peak times like Mother’s Day and graduations. 

In 2023, Shayai faced a series of severe health setbacks—including a COVID-19 infection, complications and hospitalization—that forced her to close the business for seven weeks. Without incoming revenue and facing more than $49,000 in medical bills, the future of Earth & Sky Floral Designs was in jeopardy. But it quickly became clear the shop played a vital role in the life of the community. Shayai’s customers rallied behind her, affirming that the business was essential—not just as a service provider, but as a trusted part of local traditions. 

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Loan Funds a New Sense of Purpose

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Cambri Gardner with her mother Tori Greer, RN
The Loan Fund helped Cambri Gardner change careers and find a new sense of purpose.

Cambri Gardner learned about the medical spa industry through her mother, a registered nurse working at a Colorado medical spa. Gardner now works alongside her mother at Roswell Aesthetics & Wellness, the business Gardner purchased in 2023 with the help of the nonprofit lender The Loan Fund.

Gardner had spent much of her professional career in sales and was ready for a change. “Sales was not fun for me,” said Gardner. “I really didn’t feel like I was benefiting people.”

In 2018, Gardner began working at a medical spa and was soon studying to obtain laser certification. Becoming an esthetician gave her a new sense of purpose, she said. “Seeing the changes that benefit people not just on the inside but on the outside, I felt was more life-changing for me.”

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Reaching Rural with Small Business Loans

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Carlos and Juany Chico went to several national banks for a loan to expand their lakeside food stand to a brick-and-mortar restaurant location. Like most small and startup entrepreneurs, they were turned down because they didn’t fit the lending requirements of traditional banks. That’s when they turned to the nonprofit lender DreamSpring for a small loan to fund operating and inventory expenses at the new location.

Chico’s Tortas y Pinas Lokas, now known simply as Chico’s Mexican Food, now operates out of a former KFC Restaurant building on Historic Route 66 in Santa Rosa and serves patrons in nearby Tucumcari from a food truck. The business is thriving, thanks to the tight-knit family of 12 and other staff, along with several DreamSpring loans that have enabled the company’s growth.

“DreamSpring is a good option,” Carlos said for people who don’t meet the lending requirements of traditional banks.

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This is How to Start a Business

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Joshua Arzabala knew he lacked business knowledge, but he had $50 to buy a used lawn mower and the will to forge a new path. Arzabala started Arzi’s Lawn Care, now an eight-person company in Hobbs that offers a wide variety of home services, including landscaping and yard maintenance for residential and commercial customers. Arzabala and his wife, Paloma, received business financing and consulting from the nonprofit business development organization WESST.

Arzabala contacted WESST for help to grow his small business. Meeting with the Hobbs-based team of WESST professionals, Arzabala was able to create a strong business strategy. With the team’s support, business documentation and administration became a breeze, and the new businessman could focus on customers, serving those he had and obtaining new ones. Arzabala worked all day, every day, for the first two years of the business, often at the expense of his personal and family life. With perseverance and business systems in place, he is now enjoying more time with his family and celebrating the milestones of his young daughter’s life.

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Loan Request Mistakes to Avoid

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Don't go the Wrong Way

The nonprofit small business lender LiftFund has helped thousands of small business owners navigate the funding landscape, and they’ve noticed some common pitfalls along the way. These are the three biggest mistakes LiftFund lenders have seen new business owners make – and how you can avoid them.

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