Village People

by Patti Lind, Founder & Executive Director, The Abilities Fund; Executive Director, Iowa Able Foundation

Every hour of every business day, our phone rings at The Abilities Fund and Iowa Able Foundation, and we hear the same comments and questions:  “I have a great business idea, and I need to find funding for it.”  It doesn’t matter who is making the call – an individual who is homeless living on the streets in San Francisco; a resident of a facility whose physical or emotional disability exceeds the family’s capacity to house him/her; a nineteen (19) year old who has just finished high school and is thinking into the future; a woman who is trying to find personal empowerment and financial security; an individual living in a rural or remote part of the country where job opportunities are limited; a rehab counselor working on behalf of a consumer; or a parent of a child with intellectual disabilities who has a very clear interest in the child’s future.  Our initial response to all is “tell me more about yourself” followed by a lot of active listening.

After twenty plus years of working in microenterprise development and microcredit delivery, a set of common threads are present among those callers.  In no specific order, they include 1) a business concept or some semblance of one (the ability to listen actively is a requirement of our staff), 2) their perception of business ownership, 3) and a whole lot of hope.  There is a fourth thread that begins with financial disparity and ends, hopefully, with financial opportunity - but it is not always present – at least in the beginning.  Our work has always started with sorting out the business concept and trying to understand the individual’s preparedness for business start up.  In other words, where are they in the process of developing a business plan followed by targeted information related to markets, management, and financing.  During those early conversations, we are ultimately trying to identify the feasibility of both the A) business idea and B) the individual’s capacity to actually get into business.  It’s the latter of those two that almost always hangs us up and we always need help from other providers in figuring it out.

Ours has been, by no means, a holistic approach and, after all these years, trust me when I tell you that the only appropriate way to ensure that there is a modicum of potential for successfully assisting an individual is by using a well rounded, comprehensive approach to preparing them.  They all have a different set of needs, skill sets, and life experience.  For example, some truly exhibit an entrepreneurial spirit, but not all.  If it’s not present, our work is to figure out how to fill in around it with a business that doesn’t demand that entrepreneurial burn (does anyone really dream about owning a funeral home?  If one comes up for sale and is a viable business, and the individual is capable and willing to complete the training and licensure required to operate it, why not?).  If the business idea is clearly flawed, we work with the individual to A) recognize it and B) shore it up into an idea that is feasible.  The business planning end of self employment is, frankly, the easy part of the puzzle.  The ability to assist someone is preparing a business plan has come to be an everyday service for many providers including SBDCs, Vocational Rehabilitation, community rehabilitation providers, and microenterprise organizations among others.  Some do it well in-house through group or individual technical assistance, others outsource the service to professionals, and some providers hand off software for the individual to work through.  Unfortunately, at the end of the day, when the business plan is complete, what kind of metric measures the individual’s capacity to actually get into business.  In other words, have they addressed all, or at least most, of their personal issues in order to implement the plan?

After assisting hundreds of individuals in taking a business idea from thought/dream to business plan completion, we have finally succumbed to the fact that it actually does take a village to assist them, trite as it may sound.  Rarely can one service provider do it all.  No, let me correct that:  I know of no single service provider who offers and executes all that it takes to A) assist in completing the business plan and B) has the multitude of services available required by the individual in order to prepare them to execute their business plan.

There are tens of hundreds of disability and non-disability service providers working toward microenterprise development who are, or should and could be, serving people with disabilities – and they are doing a fine job on the business plan development side.  But where are the service providers who are working on the execution of the plan?  I understand completely why nobody can do it well.  It’s costly to provide the post business plan completion training and technical assistance that anybody would need to put the plan into motion.  I’m not just talking about lining up start up capital (that is - adequate for successful start up).  What about the six month follow along financing that inevitably comes with start up?  For the single-head-of-household Mom whose idea is feasible as long as she has the supports for childcare, are we recognizing her requirements when testing feasibility and/or readying her for start up?  One of the most frustrating situations includes the individual whose credit is either non-existent or so thin and negative that not even a non-bank lender can make a loan.  If we deal with that upfront during feasibility, it could add months or years to assist that person to actually execute the business plan.

Here’s my rant:  Service providers need to quit saying that they provide “business start up or expansion services” as if they mean it.  Rather, they should say that they have business plan development services and then surround themselves with the resources (internally or by referral) necessary to actually assist the client in implementing the plan.  Service providers need to do more upfront evaluation of the individual’s capacity, including personal issues, to actually get into business before they even think about business planning.  In other words, let’s work this together.  If, for example, Vocational Rehabilitation says they can help with the business planning process, great.  At the same time, the counselor needs to be working with the client to identify the multitude of other areas that could slow down or stop the implementation of the plan – and work on those areas concurrent to developing the business plan.  Case in point – the client’s great business idea is going to require funding from possibly a few resources.  If the counselor can work with a local resource to pull the credit report and get an early picture of how creditworthy the individual is, the individual can learn what they need to do to straighten up any credit issues and begin working on it NOW.  As well, if the local Individual Development Account provider is contacted to see if the client can begin saving while working on the plan, what a boon that will be when start up time arrives.  Obviously and commonly overlooked, every client receiving either form of Social Security should have early on consultation from a trained Benefits Counselor so they understand the implications of 1) saving, 2) borrowing, and 3) earning.  This is particularly important if a non-disability specific microenterprise service is working with the client on business plan development.

Hillary was right - it does take a village, and we, the service providers, are the village people.  We need to quit thinking like stand-alone programming that can do it all and begin to think of our services under the scope of all the different types of services it will take to support an individual’s business start up.  The services may differ from one individual to another and you can count on it being far more than just the creation of a business plan.  The village is filled with other services that are appropriate and needed by our clients.  We need to recognize those services, educate the service providers about our client’s needs, and head toward a more holistic approach to supporting entrepreneurs.