LISC, a national nonprofit, is offering grants to small businesses located in rural areas defined as communities with a population of 50,000 or less. Applications will be accepted until December 6 at 9:59 pm MST. Read eligibility and apply here.
Author Archives: Admin
The Loan Fund reaches new heights
The Loan Fund, a nonprofit CDFI, has awarded 67 loans since January 2020, forty-four of which have gone to minority-owned businesses. In its 31 years, the organization has made over $100 million in loans to New Mexico small businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits that were typically unable to obtain financing through traditional lending sources. Those loans and lines of credit have helped create more than 11,500 jobs across the state.
Continue readingCreative Startups LABS Pre-Accelerator for Northern New Mexico Food Entrepreneurs
Now accepting applications. Program designed to move food entrepreneurs from early concept into the market.
Virtual Event: Reimagining the New Mexico Food Economy
1:00 – 5:00 pm Dec. 1, 2020
Free event featuring organizations that are leading the way in changing policy and building programs and resources.
The Flavor of Success
Carla Gallegos-Ortega’s homemade salsa were a hit with family and friends for as long as she can remember. In 2017, she entered the Salsa Festival in Albuquerque’s Old Town and enlisted her daughter and a few friends to help her produce 16 gallons of salsa in an outdoor tent.
She left that festival with an award and the ambition to become a food entrepreneur.
Later that same year, she discovered The Mixing Bowl, a commercial kitchen that offers a food-business incubation program and hourly kitchen rental. By June 2018, Gallegos-Ortega had a license for her business, New Mexico Sabor; a health department permit; training in best practices; and membership at the commercial kitchen.
Continue readingBusiness Support for Veterans
New Mexico is home to more than 124,000 veterans, a population tied for the sixth-highest concentration in the nation. Almost half of them are under the age of 65. For those former service members interested in operating businesses, nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies can help with business formation, certification, and contract acquisition that levels the playing field for vets who have spent their careers out of the private sector.
Veterans come to the private-sector workforce with a lot to offer, including advanced training in specialized fields such as logistics, security, information technology, personnel management and administration. They understand the complexities of doing business with the U.S. government and the importance of following instructions and protocol. They appreciate the need for teamwork and leadership, and they work well under pressure. In other words, veterans have the skills needed to start and manage a business.
Continue readingRelationships are key to successful economic development projects
Medlin Ramps of California wanted to establish a presence somewhere between its North Carolina and West Coast facilities. After visiting relatives in Alamogordo, the company CEO inquired about potential local properties and financial incentives.
Laurie Anderson, executive director of the Otero County Economic Development Council, acted quickly to demonstrate Alamogordo’s business readiness. Working with local connections, she and her project team helped the company transform an abandoned and derelict Walmart building into a 30,000 square foot facility that began manufacturing industrial ramps in February 2020.
Continue readingHomewise
A nonprofit lending organization that strengthens neighborhoods so that individuals and families can improve their long-term financial well-being.
Continue readingLibraries Poised to Become Post-Pandemic Entrepreneurial Hubs
When New Mexico libraries finally return to pre-pandemic hours and services, many will offer even more resources than they did in the past, especially to entrepreneurs.
Public libraries are ideal places to nurture people who want to start their own businesses: They are community hubs with deep roots, and local librarians are portals to knowledge, tools, and ideas that can create jobs, build the local work force, and drive development. Libraries are trusted, safe and welcoming spaces that offer culturally and economically diverse patrons free access to computers with internet access, meeting rooms, and other spaces where entrepreneurs can meet and brainstorm.
Libraries can be entrepreneurial centers in some of the same ways business incubators are, because they provide networking opportunities, vast resources and a platform for information sharing. And they can support the next generation of entrepreneurs without the expense of building, maintaining and managing a separate, limited-use facility.
Continue readingLender’s Loyalty Sustains Business Growth for Disabled Vet
Ron Edwards knew he would start his own business one day, but the path to launching Santa Fe’s Focus Advertising Specialties was paved with a variety of jobs and small-business ventures.
The most influential of his early occupations was his overseas service in the Marines, Edwards said. Thirteen weeks in basic training and four years in the military “challenged me in different ways,” he said. “I learned that I can go further than I think I can.”
Working within fixed budgets also taught Edwards how to keep operations tight.
Those lessons in endurance and efficiency prepared him for the challenges of civilian life. Edwards started a wood-finishing business and restaurant in Crested Butte, Colorado, and then moved to New Mexico. After suffering a debilitating back injury at a construction site in 2002, his days of working physically demanding jobs was over.
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