| Platinum & Gold Partners |
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Charleston Area Charitable Foundation
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| Silver Partners |
| Agracel
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City of Charleston
City of Paris
East Central Illinois Development Corporation
Effingham County Board
First Neighbor Bank
Forysthe Family Farms
Journal Gazette/Times Courier
Moultrie County Board
Paris Community Foundation
Paris First
U.S. Bank |
| Other Partners |
| Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce
Eastern Illinois Education for Employment Systems |
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Greater Effingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Frank and Cathy Brummer
Lake Land College Tech Prep
Lorenz Supply Company
PEDCO
Schultz Investment Company
State Bank of Arthur
Terwilliger Agency | |
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Entrepreneurial Endeavors |
| Greetings!
"Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush." - Doug Larson
Spring is an entreprenuerial season, optimistically creating beautiful flowers and sprigs of green to help us shake off the pessimistic remnants of a harsh, cold winter. Even though this spring is weighed down with more slush than usual - high job loss, reduced consumer spending, stock market doldrums, banks tightening their lending practices - entrepreneurial seeds are being planted in the region to spur on economic growth. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Economic Stimulus Package) is the spring rain to help fund some of our training initiatives for dislocated workers and support teen employment for our surrounding businesses and nonprofits. (Read more below.)
Take a moment to learn about the top ten ways the Business Solution Center partnership (BSC) is planting the seeds of economic growth through counseling, training and capital development. As of July, we have counseled 93 clients (55 BSC, 38 SCORE) and have trained 47 new business start-ups and another 402 business owners, nonprofits and entrepreneurs through the Jumpstart Series, forums and panels. Entrepreneurial mindsets are being nurtured with the 8-18 year old youths in the region through many new e-education initiatives. More than 372 students have participated in Junior Achievement, All Terrain Brain, or other presentations made by the BSC Staff on entrepreneurship. We're attending numerous meetings on the economic stimulus package and hope to keep you informed on how you may be able to capture value for your organization.
Jeanne
Jeanne Dau
Director
Business Solutions Center
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Economic Stimulas Package Update
Employ Youths for Free - Summer Work Experience Program
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has added money to the Children and Family Services Summer Work Experience Program to pay for aprroximately 300 summer jobs in our region specifically to employ low-income youth. The government will pay their wages, all you have to do is provide them with a beneficial work experience in your business or nonprofit organization.
For more information, call Andrea Applegate at Crossroads Workforce Investment Board at 217-235-2942 Ext. 8224 or email her at aapplegate@cwib.net for the application forms.
Obama Reduces SBA Loan Fees for the Small Business Lending Programs
On March 17, President Obama unveiled a multifaceted small business initiative to try and stimulate the small business economy with a major focus on unfreezing small business lending. Reactions to the plan were generally favorable. Key elements of the package included reducing fees on SBA 7(a) and 504 loans, Treasury buying $15 billion of small business loans on the secondary market, and a business stabilization loan program. |
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Bringing $ to Ideas
Regional Investment Forum
 How are you investing your money in these uncertain times? Did you know that only one-third of the patents assigned to Central Illinois are commercialized here? It appears that we have the knowledge in the region, but don't have the funding sources in place to support new and emerging businesses that could revitalize our economic base.
East Central Open hosted a forum at the Mattoon Country Club on January 28th to discuss ways of increasing local investment to regional companies and start-ups. As a result of this discussion, the Business Solutions Center will be hosting future forums that highlight growth companies looking for local investment dollars to grow their businesss. Contact me at 217-581-2913 or jcdau@eiu.edu if you are interested in investing in regional companies or if you are a business that would like to present your idea to local investors.
Thanks so much to the following panelists for their time and expertise (from foreground to background): Dr. Chuck Chayadi of EIU's School of Business, Paul McKillip of Lorenz Supply Company, Jason Wrone of Open Prairie Ventures, Tim Hoerr from iCyt Mission Technologies and Bob Schultz of Schultz Investment Company.
USDA Presentation Stirs Interest in Programs
On February 6th, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the BSC hosted a meeting to promote the USDA programs and how they can help communities. More than 35 attendees learned about USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grants, Business and Industry Loan Guarantees, the Intermediary Revolving Loan Fund, Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants,and Housing Loan programs. Thanks to Susan Petrea of the USDA for her lead in this project and for a very informative session.
As a result of this meeting, some entities are exploring ways to get grant funding to create a revolving loan fund (RLF) specifically targeting entrepreneurial companies. It is our hope to use these funds along with established RLF's in the region and use these funds as gap financing along with conventional bank loans to capitalize new projects.
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Back by Popular Demand - Discovering Web 2.0
On January 29th, the Lumpkin Family Foundation and the BSC sponsored a Discovering Web 2.0 Workshop at the Crossroads Workforce Investment Computer Lab in Mattoon. EIU's Antoine Thomas defined what Web 2.0 is and let the group learn about blogs, nings, flickr and Facebook and conducted hands-on exercises to help participants decide what tools might be most helpful to incorporate into their marketing and business efforts. Both businesses and nonprofits attended this event.
Many people that couldn't attend that day requested we offer the class again. So listed below are dates and times that we will train in the region. We are partnering with Millikin University's Tabor Center of Entrepreneurship for the May event.
April 30, 2009
8:30 am- 12:30 pm
Crossroads Workforce Investment Computer Lab, 305 Richmond Ave. Mattoon
May 21, 2009
9 am - 2 pm
Millikin University
Decatur
$35
Call (217) 424-6298 to register |
Youth Entrepreneurship
 Camp e3 - We are pleased to offer two Camp e3- energizing emerging entrepreneurs events this year - a day camp in Effingham and an overnight camp in Charleston. Please help spread the word and consider sponsoring a few youths from your community to plant the seeds of entrepreneurship in your own backyard.
Both camps will provide the tools to become an entrepreneurial thinker, using creativity to build a business venture through community enhancement. Campers are divided into teams of four where they create, organize, and pitch a business idea. Successful entrepreneurs will present on topics such as business concept development, creativity and innovation, marketing and advertising and business budgeting. 
This year's Effingham camp is sponsored by Midland States Bank and will be held Monday, June 8 -10, 2009 and the registration fee is $129.
The EIU Camp e3 is a 3 night - 4 day camp that will be held on the Eastern Illinois University campus. The EIU camp is Sunday, June 14 -17, 2009. The cost for the overnight camp is $395.
Please pass this information along to interested teenagers and their parents. Also please consider suggesting that your civic group or economic development agency sponsor a teen registration fee.
CampCEO - If you can't make it to Camp e3, Millikin and Southern Illinois University both offer a week long CampCEO (Millikin's is June 13-20th and SIU's is July 5-10th. Please check it out at http://www.campceo.biz.
Junior Achievement - 244 Charleston Middle School (CMS) 8th graders will complete the Junior Achievement curriculum thanks to the BSC partners and to the Lumpkin Family Foundation. Ms. Karen Garrett, Dr. Doug Bock and Dr. Julie Chadd have all been phenominal partners that has worked with the students, the business community mentors and EIU students who co-teach the JA free enterprise curriculum.
 All Terrain Brain - We're beta testing afterschool e-curriculum from the Kauffmann Foundation called All Terrain Brain designed for 8-12 year olds. The BSC is partnering with the Charleston Recreation Department and the Mattoon YMCA this spring using EIU students studying to be business teachers. A special thanks to Dr. Karen Drage for her leadership in this program.
Leadership Marshall 1/2 day Program
Teen entrepreneur David Orr of Fruper.com and I will be presenting a one-half day entrepreneurship mini-workshop to highschoolers involved in the Leadership Marshall program this week. Thanks to Tiffany Macke of the University of Illinois Extension Service for this opportunity.
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Nonprofit Convening - Steering Your Nonprofit In
Turbulent Times The Lumpkin Family Foundation and the Donors Forum are hosting a convening for nonprofits to get strategies to put you in the "driver's seat" during this difficult economy. As demand in services increase and the sources of funding decrease, what are you and your board doing to make it through this turbulent time?
Friday, April 3, 2009, 8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.,
Decatur Club, 158 W. Prairie Ave, Decatur, Illinois 62523
Registration is FREE, but seating is limited.
Please call 1.888.578.0090, x 8948 with questions. | |
| Jumpstart Series
 
Businesses and nonprofits learned about reducing costs, and increasing sales and exploring opportunities in the Jumpstart Your Business series. A special thanks to: Dave Arseneau, Ann Beck, Dan Downs, Toq Lawrence, Darlene Riedemann, Stan Thurman and Bob Webb for sharing their wealth of knowledge to the attendees.
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Business Incubators Create More Jobs
What should the economic stimulus package fund to get the most bang for its buck? Grant Thornton, an accounting and business advisory firm, conducted a survey and found that business incubators are more efficient job creators than road and transportation projects. Business incubators support entrepreneurs and start-up companies and for every $10,000 invested, they creat 46-69 local jobs versus 4-8 jobs for road and transportation projects and 10-13 jobs for new commercial structures.
How Healthy Is Your Business?
Test your business' " Vital Signs" with a financial checkup by clicking here.
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Stan's Links 
2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the state of Illinois(Economic Stimulas Pacakge)
Doing Business with the Government - Fed. Procurement
A website dedicated to educating all American about the basics of their finances
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As always, if you have any questions or suggestions on how the BSC can assist entrepreneurs, please don't hesitate to call us at 581-2913.
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