December 8, 2021
It’s been a busy Fall ’21 for the Crisp Small Business Resource Center
Bruce Leggett of Nashville, North Carolina tends to his strawberry crop on his 3,000 acre farm. His farm recently participated in the Executive Farm Management Program, a Crisp Center partner initiative.
Fall 2021 has been a busy and rewarding semester for the Crisp Small Business Resource Center. The Center has seen the expansion of existing programs and the addition of several new programs and grants showing small business community impact.
Start Teams Grant
In November, the Crisp Center was awarded its third grant from NC Idea to build student teams to assist high-growth startups. The grant was awarded to the Crisp Center with the Entrepreneurship Program at Campbell University as a sub awardee.
The start teams will be multi-disciplinary teams made of student graphic designers, video editors, web specialists, entrepreneurial leads, marketing, law, and engineering/design students. These teams will work with the promising startups to provide needed development expertise and, at the same time, gain hands-on experience for the student entrepreneurs on the start team. These faculty-managed teams will work directly on small business projects to add resources to accelerate growth.
The start teams will address specific unmet needs of entrepreneurial development for high-growth startups. Multi-disciplinary, intercollegiate teams will fill the early company skills gap to allow startup founders to focus on core competencies, refinement of the MVP, and definition of the value proposition for the customer. The program will also expose students to entrepreneurial career paths and become a talent pool in the startup ecosystem in underserved and rural communities.
Team and startup recruitment has begun, and teams will be placed beginning in January 2022. The Crisp Center will also be seeking matching federal grant funds for this initiative to scale the program impact.
Shop Rural Day
Shop Rural Day is the fourth NC Idea Grant-funded initiative through the Crisp Center that brings a rural business live-shopping experience to consumers. Modeled after live shopping festivals in China, Shop Rural is a new way for rural businesses to tell their stories and gain loyal customers. The project launched on November 11 with 19 rural companies. Due to program success and sales of the participants, Shop Rural Day has been extended through the holiday season. Those interested in shopping can access the sales platform through Popshop Live or ShopRuralDay.org.
Accelerate Rural NC Director Dennis Tracz has recruited 15+ sponsors for the event that have been able to reach thousands of potential customers through their marketing channels.
Small Business Navigator Program
The small business navigator program identifies resources that can be helpful for student and community small businesses and connects the businesses with needed resources. Resource connections are being made through pitch competitions, grants, and loan programs; resources are being explored in technical assistance and training. The navigator program is both reactive, helping businesses that reach out to the Center and proactive, reaching out to community businesses that may be a fit for programs.
The navigator program also will be taking over maintenance and administration of the Pitt County VINES website (Vertically Integrated Network of Entrepreneurial Support). VINES is a resource landing page that lists small businesses and entrepreneurial support resources specific to Eastern, NC Home • Pitt County VINES (vinesnc.com).
Pollution Prevention and Source Reduction Grant
The ECU Center for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering and the Crisp Center were awarded a $50,000 EPA grant to help manufacturers reduce waste and pollution in the automotive and food industries. The Center for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering will provide waste and energy audits for six manufacturing companies, and the Crisp Center will conduct a cost-benefit analysis on recommendations. The grant also includes a series of workshops for manufacturing companies on waste reduction best practices and how to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. The first two webinars in the series each had around 55 participants, including representatives from manufacturing and regulatory agencies.
Human Resources Webinar Series-
A new series of Human Resource webinars have been offered in the fall in partnership with the College of Businesses Manufacturing Extension Partnership initiative (MEP). MEP is a statewide network of manufacturing extension services administered out of NC State University. A series of six webinars is planned on current and relevant topics. The first webinar discussed the implications of an emergency executive order related to the vaccination mandate for 100+ employers. About 40 manufacturing HR professionals attended.
Support for Eastern NC Food Commercialization Center-
The Crisp Center is one of two representing board seats on behalf of ECU for the Eastern North Carolina Food Commercialization Center. The ENCFCC will become a focal point to enable new food-based businesses in the region. The facility just received a $4,000,000 appropriation from the NC General Assembly and is pursuing matching funds from EDA for construction. Construction of the facility should begin in 2022.
Student Paid Consulting-
This semester, there is a pilot for student-paid consulting projects that the faculty supervise. Two students are working to develop a full business plan for a business seeking expansion in the region. The business plan will be used to gain funding.
Checking in on existing programs.
Accelerate Rural NC-
The virtual synchronous cohorts of the accelerator have helped around 125 businesses in rural counties throughout the state; early survey reports indicate job creation of 1.8 per participating firm and sales increases of more than 20%. ARNC was awarded an additional
USDA Deputy Under Serecary for Rural Development Justin Maxson (Photo by Rhett Butler)(Photo by Rhett Butler)
$150,000 in late summer from the USDA to expand the program’s reach; the program’s success was recognized with a visit from Justin Maxson, USDA deputy undersecretary for rural development, and U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield. In addition to supporting two additional virtual cohorts, the USDA grant funds creating an asynchronous program that can be offered at scale throughout the state. A team of three faculty members in the adult education department is creating the program using digital assets collected in the synchronous program.
The ARNC team is hiring a new team member to help build statewide partnerships to offer the accelerator program. The dedicated ARNC team will include the ARNC Director, ARNC Partnership Coordinator, three team members in the College of Education, and five student workers.
Executive Farm Management
The Executive Farm Management program will move back to an in-person full offering for 2022. Forty large family farms are set to participate in the program. EFM is a partnership with NCSU, GA Tech, Clemson, and Crisp Center/ECU College of Business. The Crisp Center also offered two family business planning webinars to the agriculture community through the George Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association and NCSU.
Economic Developer Training
The Crisp Center hosted ten economic developers in the fall for training on how to integrate small businesses and entrepreneurship in their economic development strategy. This training has a great impact on local policy in economic development.
Supporting Small Business Center Trainings
The Crisp Center partnered with two community college Small Business Centers to offer six trainings for community business owners. Approximately 50 small businesses attended the training.
Resource Portal
The Small Business Resource Portal is now being used for businesses to seek help from the university. Businesses are finding the portal. Advertising that positions the portal as the front door for the Center will increase during the spring semester.
Student Class Consulting Projects
Small business consulting continues to be a strength of the Crisp Center. The Faculty Alliance Program added a class in the Fall (Technical Writing). Active consulting courses for the Fall semester include Small Business Management, Managing the Family Business, Human Resource Management, and Technical Writing. Approximately 10,000 hours were provided to 12 businesses.
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