Megan Yackovich founded Ballet Taos Academy in 2016 to help young dancers develop their passion for this classical art form. A former professional dancer who previously operated an academy in Colorado Springs, Yackovich fell in love with Taos while traveling through and decided to stay. Small business loans and assistance from the nonprofit lender The Loan Fund helped anchor Yackovich and her nonprofit academy in New Mexico.
Continue reading
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.
Continue reading
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.”
Continue reading
Kelley and Steve Cherry were so pleased with the experience of securing a loan to buy one commercial building in Red River that they want to buy another building the same way.
The couple worked with Century Bank to obtain a U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loan to purchase the building they previously leased for their 3-year-old ice cream and sweets shop, L’il Willie’s Shenanigans. They hope to use the same strategy to buy the building from which they’ve operated Shotgun Willie’s Café for the past decade.
The appeal of 504 loans is that interest rates are fixed at a significantly lower rate than traditional banks offer for commercial real estate loans, and borrowers get lots of help from lenders and the certified development companies that evaluate 504 loan packages for the SBA. The nonprofit Enchantment Land Certified Development Company played that role for the Cherrys.
Continue readingThe nonprofit business development organization WESST has been named the New Mexico Microlender of the Year 2025 by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Known best for its workshops and business consulting, WESST has a loan fund that offers microloans to qualifying businesses that work with its consultants.
Continue reading
Christina Kent Early Childhood Center (CKECC), Albuquerque’s oldest continuously operating childcare center, is set to significantly expand its services through the purchase and renovation of a new building, thanks to a community-centered partnership with Homewise. The expansion will allow CKECC to double its capacity, offering critical early education to even more families in the Barelas neighborhood and across Albuquerque.
Established in 1919, CKECC has served the Albuquerque community for over a century, providing high-quality childcare and early childhood education to low-income families. The center, accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), currently serves 62 children in three classrooms and is committed to ensuring accessible education through a sliding scale tuition model that considers both income and family size. Through its participation in the NM PreK program, CKECC also offers free tuition for 3- to 5-year-olds.
Like many entrepreneurs, Adrian Chavez, Sr. did not intend to start a security business.
Chavez created Lobo Protective Services in 2017 after working as a security guard to earn income while studying political science at university and paying for his wedding. It was working that job that he was approached by someone who noticed his work ethic and integrity.
“This woman said, ‘I never met someone like you in the industry. If you open your own company, I will hire you for my next project,’” Chavez recounted.
Chavez wasn’t well versed in the security field at the time, but he would hear that there weren’t many reputable or state-licensed security companies.
After that conversation and a discussion with his wife, Chavez decided to take the entrepreneurial leap. “It’s not rocket science. It’s doing good, doing what you say, and saying what you mean,” Chavez said.
Continue readingThe nonprofit lender RCAC provides no-cost direct technical assistance to rural entrepreneurs and small businesses to launch or re-launch their business; operate, sustain, and grow their business; secure access to financing; and build networks.
Continue reading
A nonprofit isn’t in business to enrich its shareholders, but it still needs revenues and incurs operating expenses while pursuing its community service mission. It, too, can experience cash flow problems or require considerable cash to fund a capital project or expanded services.
When that happens, the nonprofit faces many of the same choices a for-profit business does, though it draws from different funding sources.
While a for-profit business can offer investors a chance to share in the company’s fortunes by buying stocks, for example, a nonprofit relies on stakeholders who are motivated by public interest rather than self-interest.
Continue readingThe Tuesday after Thanksgiving marks Giving Tuesday when nonprofit organizations encourage charitable donations that can enable their charitable work. Often overlooked are grass-roots economic development organizations such as nonprofit lenders and business resource programs that support entrepreneurship in our state. Nonprofit lenders like DreamSpring, WESST, and others rely on private and public money they make available to startups and small businesses in New Mexico.
Continue reading