Community Capital of Vermont staff.
by Vicky Parra TebbettsCommunity Capital of Vermont is not a typical small business lender. Their loan officers are not typical bankers; their borrowers are not typical business people. Quietly, this non-profit lender in Barre is backing unexpected entrepreneurs statewide who have been turned down by banks and conventional financers, usually on the basis of credit or collateral.Is it risk or opportunity? At CCVT, the glass is half full.
“Gender, race, culture, and income may comprise social barriers to standard loans; credit history and collateral come into play in the world of traditional financing,” notes CCVT Executive Director Martin Hahn. “CCVT is different. We are a stepping stone to help people build the sales, experience, and credit their businesses need to become sustainable and successful.”
“We provide equal access with an open door to anyone with the will to succeed in business,” notes Hahn. Many of CCVT’s borrowers are disadvantaged, lack skills and training, or are disqualified on paper – bank paper – for mainstream financing. They have taken a different path, have not had the opportunity to establish credit within the matrix of conventional review, or been passed over by fortune.
About 84 percent of CCVT loans are to women, start-ups, and lower income borrowers. In the practical world, CCVT provides easy access to business capital, and post-loan business counseling. Profoundly, they help transform energy and ingenuity into financial success.
CCVT’s small business loans range in size from $1,000 to $100,000. When is small better? “When it fills the gap,” noted Hahn. “CCVT loans don’t contemplate big money or high-profile development.” But CCVT loans are flexible. They’re creative. And they’re critical to Vermont, as well as the entrepreneurs behind them. “With these loans we are creating new investment in downtowns, the working landscape, and businesses that speak to Vermont and its independent culture.”
Shawn Kincaid of Sutton created JSK Transport, which hauls freight for established trucking companies under lease agreements. Kincaid used his CCVT loan to purchase his own tractor-trailer and cover start-up costs. Catching up with Kincaid recently via phone as he waited out a snowstorm in Virginia, Kincaid said, “As an owner-operator, I have greater flexibility, independence, and the opportunity to earn more revenue as I map out my own expansion. CCVT helped me through the process and became a partner to realizing one of my most important life goals.”
From pre-venture to working capital, any opportunity within the financing cycle is very much on the table. South Burlington’s PACK Commercial Kitchen recently opened with Michael Adams and Brian Martell at the helm. Adams and Martell anticipate filling a critical manufacturing need: the successful owners of Green Mountain Mustard and the Vermont Hummus Company are combining forces to grow their investment into a co-packing space. With the support of CCVT to purchase equipment, the 12,000 square foot warehouse will transform into a commercial kitchen, a hot fill line, cold fill line, packaging and shipping lines, and an incubator space for emerging food companies.
To connect with the unlikely entrepreneur, CCVT works with a network of bank and economic development partners. In addition to the more routine slate of business events and regional community investment meetings, loan officers’ calendars may include events hosted by working lands groups, agricultural networks, Slow Money, social service agencies, or the sustainability crowd. A robust Facebook presence shares CCVT borrower news and opportunities with an ever-expanding network.
CCVT closed 2015 with the highest loan volume in the history of the organization - with a median loan size of about $10,000. Adding up to about a million dollars for the year, those are a lot of small loans with mighty impact. CCVT was the SBA Microlender of the Year for the third year in a row in 2015, approving SBA microloans worth a total of $435,000 to 29 Vermont businesses in the form of startup funds or working capital.
Helping provide solutions to Vermont's under-served entrepreneurs while providing Vermont with an economic development and job creation mechanism that is rarely recognized, CCVT has established itself as Vermont’s unconventional financing leader.
The making of a Vermont entrepreneur
Community Capital of Vermont’s business people reflect the character of Vermont: hard working, innovative, resilient, and rooted in community. A bookstore owner who spent childhood summers in the library on the job with her grandmother, a transportation infrastructure welder with an affinity for jewelry design, a US Marine Corps mother of five committed to baby-wearing, a baker whose leading source of ingredients is his own garden, several engineers, a potter, and chefs…
The “StoryMap” captures some CCVT entrepreneurs’ motivation in an interactive, digital presentation (available from www.communitycapitalvt.org and also posted at http://bit.ly/1NNTQZM.)
Vicky Tebbetts is the Principal of VT Marketing and Communications and works with CCVT.