Colorado's Small Businesses Get $17 Million Boost

Two New Programs Launched to Increase Businesses' Access to Capital

Small businesses in Colorado are getting a $17 million boost through two new capital access programs announced by Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT), and Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA).

The programs, Colorado Capital Access and Cash Collateral Support, will help businesses with 750 or fewer employees obtain loans from their local bank for working capital, inventory, real estate or equipment purchases, or lines of credit.

"Colorado has more than 570,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses that fuel our state's economic recovery," Gov. John Hickenlooper said. "As we traveled around the state during the bottom-up economic development process, we heard from communities from Cortez to Julesburg about the importance of access to capital. These programs will increase the availability of capital that small businesses need to hire more employees, grow their product lines and expand their businesses."

Funding for Colorado Capital Access and Cash Collateral Support was authorized by Congress through the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. In October 2011, Colorado received $17.2 million through the Act's Small Business Credit Initiative Program, which was designed to assist states in implementing capital access programs. Two million will be used to for the Colorado Capital Access program, and $15.2 million for Cash Collateral Support program. All proceeds must be deployed by October 2013. 

CHFA will serve as the program administrator for both programs based on their successful track record in overseeing the Colorado Credit Reserve program. 

CHFA's Executive Director and CEO, Cris White said, "CHFA's strong partnership with banks will help ensure these resources are deployed to small businesses across the state. The Colorado Credit Reserve program has clearly demonstrated that increasing access to capital helps create and retain jobs, which is critical to strengthening the state's economy. These new programs will further that effort."

Businesses may obtain more information about Colorado Credit Reserve, Colorado Capital Access, and Cash Collateral Support, including a complete list of participating lenders, at www.chfainfo.com, or by calling CHFA at 800.877.2432.  

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Thumbtack.com, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation, has released new data showing that Colorado small businesses are among the top ten most optimistic nationwide about their economic future.

There are a lot of "business climate rankings", but there aren't any that draw upon considerable data from small business owners themselves. The Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey is the only survey to draw data from an extensive, nationwide universe of job creators and entrepreneurs themselves in order to investigate the best places in the country to do business.

"After a two-month survey of over 6,000 small business owners nationwide, though Colorado doesn't fail in any particular category, its small businesses certainly see a lot of room for improvement," said Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com. "However, given the overall supportive environment by Colorado, small businesses looking for a place to hang a shingle or to plant a flag can't do much better than Colorado."

Some of the key findings for Colorado include:

• Colorado's small business owners were very optimistic about their economic future - the state ranked #9 nationwide for small business optimism.
• Surprisingly, women-owned small businesses in Colorado felt much more comfortable economically than did their male counterparts. Female entrepreneurs were 14% more likely than male entrepreneurs to rate their company's current financial situation as "good" or "very good".
• Although Colorado ranked well in a variety of categories, the state's small businesses are struggling when compared with those in other Western states. Colorado's small businesses were the fourth-least healthy and the fifth-slowest growing in the West.
• The Front Range is the state's stand-out region, receiving #1 rankings for 9 of the 17 categories rated by small businesses. In contrast, the Eastern Plains fails along multiple dimensions, receiving the lowest ranking for a variety of categories - the region has the state's least friendly business regulations and has the state's least healthy small businesses. Small businesses rated the Denver Metro region as being the state's #1 least costly for hiring a new employee, but the region had the second-least publicized training and networking programs in Colorado.
• Small businesses run by conservatives seem to be doing significantly better than small businesses run by liberals. Conservative entrepreneurs in Colorado were 39% more likely than the state's liberal entrepreneurs to rate their business's financial situation as "good" or "very good".

The full survey results can be seen here and include full sets of rankings, dozens of easily searchable quotes from Colorado small businesses, regional comparisons within states, and Census data comparing Colorado's key demographics against those of other states.