West Enterprise Center, INC.

The Rural StartUp Business Accelerator and Incubator gives rural BIPOC and women entrepreneurs with great ideas an intensive training and learning experience to create sustainable businesses in rural, low-wealth communities. Through a no-cost, 26-week training program followed by a six-month retail incubator, early-stage Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, and female-identified entrepreneurs come together for in-depth technical assistance, one-on-one counseling and mentorship, and the opportunity to participate in a pop up incubator. 

The program design supports personalized training for participants’ specific circumstances and industry as well as provides cooperative learning to foster peer support and collaboration. Participants are placed into cohorts with team leaders who meet weekly to discuss their progress, in addition to receiving group instruction through five modules: Business Planning, Financial Planning, eCommerce/Technology, Branding & Marketing, and Pitch Presentation. Participants also have free access to professional business advisors for confidential one-on-one counseling. 

The program has evolved based on participant feedback, and now emphasizes collaboration over competition (as it was originally conceived). At the program’s conclusion, a selection of these businesses will be invited to participate in a six-month retail pop-up incubator. A free cooperative space in downtown Fort Bragg, CA will serve as a learning place for new retail best practices, act as a testing ground for product development, generate revenue, and build confidence, so that at the conclusion entrepreneurs will be ready to launch their own storefronts that will help keep our rural towns vibrant and economically resilient.

In rural communities, a lack of diverse industries with liveable wages and low quality jobs leads to high levels of poverty that disproportionately affects BIPOC individuals and women. The pandemic exacerbated an already vulnerable situation; between 2020-2021, 31% of business closed in Mendocino County, and 4,800 jobs were lost over six months alone. With this economic backdrop, often the best course to economic empowerment is to become an entrepreneur. 

In rural Northern California, Mendocino County spans 3,878 square miles with a population of 86,000; Lake County is slightly smaller with 64,000. Approximately 25% of the population is Hispanic/Latino, 6% is American Indian & Native Alaskan, and 50% are women. A low-skilled and poorly educated workforce means poverty rates hover between 17-18%. The region, already weak due to the collapse of timber and commercial fishing, has been impacted by unprecedented climate-related disasters and population decline. Limited broadband and a lack of digital literacy have handicapped businesses. COVID-19 had a staggering compounding impact.

The opportunity to participate in a business accelerator and retail incubator that serves to educate and empower BIPOC and women entrepreneurs can be life changing. Across the country, but particularly in rural communities, economic security is out of reach for many. Recognizing that every business start has the potential to transform a community, and that entrepreneurship is a central pillar of economic recovery, supporting rural small business owners, who provide jobs and a stable economic base, ensures prosperity for individuals, their families, and entire communities.

The founding mission of West Center is strongly aligned with the Challenge as the organization was created to provide transformational support for rural low- and moderate- income (LMI) women, eventually expanding into serving all rural entrepreneurs. 

Financial literacy is key to closing longstanding race and gender gaps. The disparities women and BIPOC individuals continue to face were made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing recession which exacerbated wage, wealth, and power imbalances. The Rural StartUp program directly addresses this through our Financial Planning curriculum, designed to empower participants by teaching them to understand financial statements, conduct budget forecasts and cash flow projections, develop  financial plans, conduct market analysis reviews, and create realistic profit margins and expense strategies. West Center’s strong relationships with local banks and capital funds allows opportunities for small business owners to connect with local lenders and regional funders and access capital.

The Rural StartUp Business Accelerator and Incubator also supports and fosters growth to scale by ensuring these small business owners have the vision, foundation, and the tools for success. Nurturing new entrepreneurs in rural regions requires fostering and demonstrating examples of innovation and building up the confidence to communicate, test ideas, and fail often. Many of our rural entrepreneurs lack an understanding of current trends in marketing, eCommerce, technology, and financial and business planning skills. These gaps impede their women entrepreneurs, who have more barriers. Through compassionate counseling, professional skill-building, training, and mentoring, we take an integrated approach to their development as thriving entrepreneurs.

In 2023, our solution will serve 15 rural, early-stage, BIPOC and woman entrepreneurs in Mendocino and Lake Counties. In our region, 30% of the population is BIPOC (Hispanic/Latino account for 25%), 50% are women, 25% are over 65 and 25% are under 18. There are 20 federally recognized tribes. The economic climate is bleak; the region’s manufacturing and extractive resource industries were in massive decline before the pandemic hollowed out local businesses. There is a high concentration of low-wage jobs, less than 25% have a Bachelor’s Degree, and poverty rates are between 17-18%. Outmigration and age dynamics have led to demographic stagnation and depopulation. The region is unable to recruit new workers and businesses. This, combined with limited broadband and a lack of digital literacy is the landscape within which we operate.

West Center serves on average 650 businesses annually. Of those, 63% qualify as LMI and 65% are women-owned. We seek to reset the economic balance by reaching rural BIPOC and women who will benefit from entrepreneurial support and training, and who in turn will help bolster the whole region.

The Rural StartUp Program was conceived to nurture new entrepreneurs; the area was not only not encouraging innovative talent, but losing it all together. As the region’s only business accelerator and now incubator program, community benefits include many small businesses assisted, jobs created and retained, and millions of dollars in capital flowing through the region. This summer, a pilot accelerator program will be delivered entirely in Spanish.

Rural small business owners already face unprecedented and formidable challenges on their entrepreneurial pathway; the pandemic was the last in a series of blows to their economic vitality. If bold and imaginative action is not soon taken, these negative trends  are likely to drag the region into another lost decade.

In its first two years, Rural StartUp took place only in Mendocino County. For year three, we are looking to expand into our neighboring Lake County, a service area already covered by West Center as the host to the Mendocino/Lake Small Business Development Center. The addition of a retail incubator would expand the training to include hands-on experience in customer service, managing cashless transactions and new approaches to customer loyalty programming. We believe this program can be a turn-key model for rural business acceleration, development, and retail incubation, and with increased funding would like to see this program replicated in rural communities throughout California and the west.

West Center is a rural-based nonprofit organization launched in 1988 to create self-sufficiency and prosperity for LMI individuals through business ownership. One of only two Women’s Business Centers (WBC) in Northern California, and as host to the Mendocino/Lake Small Business Development Center (SBDC), West Center’s mission is to educate and advocate for small businesses so that local entrepreneurs receive the information they need to launch and expand their business. As the County of Mendocino’s Economic Development liaison, West Center has expanded capacity and regularly collaborates with organizations such as Chambers of Commerce, Economic Development Finance Corporation, California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity, Sonoma-Mendocino Economic Development District, and the Workforce Alliance of the North Bay. We are recognized within the rural sector for developing no-cost innovative programs to educate and train individuals to launch sustainable businesses, raise family incomes, and provide economic stability and mobility in their communities.

Thriving small businesses are the foundation of economic vibrancy in rural regions. BIPOC and women-owned businesses are essential to that framework. The Rural StartUp Business Accelerator and Incubator envelops entrepreneurs, enabling their ideas to take shape and develop into thriving enterprises, eventually creating generational wealth for their families and communities. The year-long, no cost model includes personalized training, one-on-one advising, mentorship, peer support, and access to a free cooperative downtown retail space. 

Specific metrics demonstrate our economic impact. The program launched in 2019 and relaunched in 2022 following the pandemic. In 2019, there were 23 new business starts as a result of our program versus only 17 in 2020. By 2020, the amount of capital we helped our clients obtain jumped from $189,862.00 to $1,129,898.00, and client counseling hours went from 1,297 in 2019 to 1,735 in 2020. Our 2022 Rural StartUp garnered 12 new business starts. For Rural StartUp 2023, our goal is to get 15 new BIPOC and woman-owned small businesses operational and generating revenue by the end of  2023.

ACTIVITIES: 26 weeks (36 hours) of intensive training and mentor sessions, along with the opportunity to participate in a six-month cooperative retail pop-up shop. Specific training activities enable participants to launch a market-ready business that is licensed, branded, and capitalized

OUTPUTS: Participants gain competency in business and financial management, learn leadership skills and develop a peer network. The low-risk incubator setting to try out marketing, sales techniques and product development on real customers gives them the opportunity to use what they have learned to move towards the next stages of their business development.

SHORT TERM OUTCOMES: Participants gain business and financial skills, define their brand, successfully target their audience, receive a promotional boost, access needed capital, and develop strategic relationships. 

LONG TERM OUTCOMES: Graduates have job security, innovation increases, more jobs are created and this growth positively impacts regional wealth as these businesses become a vital piece of the economic fabric. Sustainable, resilient start ups create positive economic impact for the rural region and the local community.

In 2022, our solution served 12 individual businesses and 13 total entrepreneurs. We are conducting a similar rural startup business accelerator solution this summer which will serve 20 mono- and bilingual Spanish speakers.

In 2023, we anticipate serving 15 rural small businesses through the rural startup accelerator program. If successful, we will launch an additional Spanish language version of the program serving another 20 Hispanic/Latino owned businesses. 

In five years, we would like to be running a minimum of two Rural StartUp programs annually, in both English and Spanish, in a multitude of communities. Ideally, we would create 15-20 new businesses in at least four rural cities through our English and Spanish programs for a total of 140 small businesses served annually.

Our primary community is our clients, rural entrepreneurs in Mendocino and Lake Counties. West Center has two physical locations in Mendocino County, however, since the pandemic all services are now virtual. As of 2021, West Center expanded into neighboring Lake County when it became the Mendocino and Lake Small Business Development Center. Our solution serves entrepreneurs spanning both counties.

Organizational strategies are driven by the key internal organizational decision makers such as West Center’s Board of Directors, Women’s Business Center Advisory Board, and leadership team. However, our work is deeply informed by our community, and in our new role as the Economic Development Liaison for Mendocino County, we have taken on an expanded role for receiving and responding to community needs and challenges.

Key stakeholders include community members, business owners, Chambers of Commerce, Economic Development Finance Corporation, city and county governments, lenders and elected officials.

At the height of the pandemic, when West Center recognized the need to focus the community's attention on the economic fallout still to come, we championed the development of a county-wide economic resiliency plan for Mendocino County. Supported by a grant from the Economic Development Administration (EDA), West Center conducted meetings with over 200 residents, government, and community leaders to create MOVE 2030: Mendocino Opportunities for building a Vibrant Economy, which establishes a vision for a more resilient economy created through public and private partnerships. Several of the report recommendations were directly incorporated in the County of Mendocino’s newly drafted strategic plan, including: Bolster the County’s Economic Development Infrastructure; Strengthen small business and entrepreneurship environment; and Build, Support and Retain a Robust and adaptable workforce.

This body of work led to two county supervisors being appointed to West Center’s Board of Directors, and West Center receiving a county contract to become the Economic Development Liaison. 

West Center regularly requests feedback from our clients and community partners, and continually strives to co-create community-led solutions with our partners, particularly from the Hispanic/Latino and Indigenous communities, as we are aware that every community need is different and solutions need to be flower from the ground up. We currently have two part-time Spanish speaking advisors; an area we are keenly interested in exploring is developing and training new business advisors, and we would ultimately like to have two additional full-time professional advisors, one that is bilingual Spanish/English and one that is from a local tribe. Developing more meaningful relationships with local tribes is particularly important because these community members have been historically marginalized and left out of civic participation more than any other group in our region. 

Some examples of how West’s programs and services are influenced by community needs include: 

• Disaster Preparation Program: After the major fires in 2017, West Center created an emergency preparation training program for small business owners that addressed gaps in federal (FEMA) and state (OES) information which has been presented throughout the state and in Texas and is currently being translated into Spanish. 

• Artists in Action Series: When the pandemic closed galleries and retail stores, we  realized many artists were struggling to keep their businesses alive. Our Artists in Action series, such as the Art of Pricing and Navigating the Gallerist-Artist Relationship, has attracted hundreds of artists from all over the state. 

• Programs for Seniors: Most recently, West Center has been developing programs for seniors, including Second Act: Entrepreneurship after 50 and a Spanish-language digital literacy program specifically for older Hispanic women.
  

Community trust has been built up over the past 30 years West Center has been servicing rural entrepreneurs and small business owners, and has been solidified by our impact in the region. West Center has become the ‘go to’ agency in our region for small business technical assistance, workshops, and regional economic development activities. As evidenced by hundreds of client support letters received over the years, West Center has helped many small business owners achieve goals beyond their wildest dreams. 

Over the past five years, West Center has provided 14,852 hours of counseling to 2,270 clients; helped create 531 jobs (full and part-time) and retain 4,758 jobs; assisted businesses to receive $27,555,743 in loans and equity; supported 157 new business start-ups; and delivered 1,788 workshops. Since the pandemic, demand for services has increased 160%.

West Center has grown from exclusively providing small business technical assistance to becoming an economic development hub developing a sustainable rural economy. Having just been named as the County of Mendocino’s main economic development agency, the first for the county, we have reached a pivotal point. Timing is critical because without significant leadership and successful economic development, the regional economy will not recover. 

West Center has several key impact goals over the next one to five years, in addition to providing small business technical assistance, helping create and retain jobs, and helping businesses secure capital. Currently West is  coordinating the Redwood Region’s community economic resilience fund plan. This is vital because the region is in desperate need for infrastructure funding. West is also taking an active role in the exploration and development of the blue ocean economy, supporting education, innovation, entrepreneurship, and blue/green job force training, which could potentially lead to millions of investment dollars in the region.

In its role as Economic Development Liaison, West will focus on three strategic areas including, Economic Development Capacity, Business Recruitment and Retention, and Workforce Development.

Specific deliverables include:

• Create and manage an online economic development portal;

• Business retention and recruitment;

• Convene and/or attend economic development stakeholder meetings;

• Pursue strategic grant funding opportunities in alignment with economic development strategies;

• Serve as the Point of Contact (POC) for businesses interested in locating or expanding into Mendocino County;

• Provide business development and technical assistance for new businesses;

• Convene a multi-stakeholder workforce advisory committee.

West Center’s leadership team has been engaged in business development, leadership, community advocacy, education and technology for decades. Staff is trained to reach out and respond to the needs of our clients and other community members, and West Center is routinely adapting and developing programs to better serve our small businesses. 

Every time West Center develops partnerships with new community groups, we take the time to foster meaningful relations and work together to co-create solutions that will be impactful for that particular group of individuals. For example, current programs under development for local tribes are being led by an Indiegenous man who is very much interested in creating entrepreneurship opportunities and helping members develop the credit skills needed for home ownership. 

West Center CEO, Mary Anne Petrillo has over 25 years’ strategic marketing and communication experience in the education and the high-tech sector, in addition to also being a small business owner. Women’s Business Center Director and Director of Programs, Laura Brooks, has over 15 years’ experience helping people and organizations determine their goals and create clear solutions to overcome any obstacles. Our resident generalist advisors, Steve Lamb and Kevin Williams, have over 20 years’ experience each in business development and leadership. 

Our specialty advisors are experts in their own fields, with many running their own consulting businesses, in areas such as marketing including planning and research, social media, advertising, restaurant/entrepreneur, human resources, building/planning, permitting, real estate, green energy, arts and finance/loans. Two contract advisors are Hispanic and speak Spanish.

West Center is applying for the Truist Foundation Inspire Awards because we believe wholly and deeply that our Rural StartUp Business Accelerator and Incubator is a model for inspiring and supporting rural entrepreneurs who have the potential to transform their communities. We believe the funding, visitily, and support that will come as a result of this award program would enable us to develop and deliver our program to rural towns throughout the west. Furthermore, we would like to be able to tailor this program to any community that needs it, and have the resources to deliver it in culturally and linguistically-appropriate ways.

Because our Rural StartUp program is based on tailored training programs that incorporate peer support, we know first-hand the importance of such services, and look forward to the opportunity to participate in such a learning experience ourselves. We could greatly benefit from an external and objective needs assessment, access to a network of national partners and mentors, a deeper exploration of participatory, equitable and inclusive economic development models and practices, better defining and our theory of change and developing plans for scaling and growth. We are also extremely excited about developing a broader peer support network, as one of our challenges is geographic isolation so the ability to connect with peers outside of our area, and even our state, is extremely important and appealing.

As West Center finds itself at a critical juncture in its 30-year evolution, our new path forward will require obtaining substantial new resources, developing new capacities and achieving a higher level of engagement with partners and local communities. Not only must we overcome our geographical and cultural isolation but also develop strong and effective collaborations with other regions. New models must evolve for entrepreneurship to thrive in rural economies. We know that our work has moved minds and created space for new partnerships and possibilities to flourish. We have effectively spotlighted rural small businesses and demonstrated how supporting rural entrepreneurs through technology, compassion and innovation can transform communities. 

West Center serves as a model for rural small business development and individual economic empowerment. We are ready to take our unique approach to rural innovation to the next level, helping other rural regions spark and strengthen small businesses that will bolster and grow their local economies. We believe we are the leader poised to meet this moment, and funding and recognition from the Truist Foundation Inspire Awards will help propel this work forward and give us a much larger platform from which to champion and elevate rural small businesses.

West Center has intentionally developed deep and meaningful relationships with local and regional partners, including the Association of Women’s Business Centers (AWBC), Sonoma-Mendocino Economic Development District (SMEDD), and membership in California Association for Local Economic Development (CalEd), and California Association For Micro Enterprise Opportunity (CAMEO). 

However, we are extremely excited about the potential to partner with other economic development agencies across the nation, both to share our strategies and solutions and learn how other rural agencies are serving and supporting their communities. We are deeply interested in working with elected leaders and major funders to continue to advocate for policy change and increased funding for rural small business, and we hope to be able to leverage these relationships to continue to provide community leadership, develop regional infrastructure, support new economies and industries, educate and train a highly qualified and compensated workforce, build affordable and market-rate housing, and in general, up lift the quality of life and economic mobility for all of our community members.