$85,000 grant to help fund business development

Three organizations will be collaborating to assist with business development in underserved neighborhoods in Grand Rapids thanks to a $85,000 grant from the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.

The Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center (MI-SBDC) will be helping to coordinate the use of the funds along with the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and LINC (formerly Lighthouse Communities).

According to Dante Villarreal, regional director at MI-SBDTC, the grant will be used to hire a full-time Spanish-speaking business consultant with offices three days a week at Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"Existing businesses and startups will be able to get assistance in starting, growing, getting access to capital," he says.

Villarreal explains that the consultant will have a strong finance background that will hopefully help bridge the access gap for capital, explaining that for many minority entrepreneurs it is "harder in general to get money due to language and cultural barriers."

Laurie Craft, program director at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, points to a combination of things that led to the grant.

"With the recent release of census data, we saw where the population is going -- especially the growth of the hispanic community in West Michigan," she says. "One our priorities is around promoting job creation, training, workforce development, education and economic prosperity and making sure people are employed."


Source: Dante Villarreal, MI-SBDTC, Laurie Craft, Grand Rapids Community Foundation
Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs Editor