Where: Mendocino County, California
Problem: Tribes affiliated with Northern Circle in California have limited capacity for leadership and business development.
Solution: RCAC provides training to build entrepreneurship, value chains, business planning and finance, develop leadership, capacity for business development, and access to resources.
Northern Circle is an organization that serves Tribes in Mendocino County, Northern California, including bands of the Pomo Indians. Tribal members have limited support for developing new businesses to improve economic conditions. In the past, RCAC worked with Northern Circle on leadership development. In 2015, RCAC responded to a request for training and technical assistance for Native business development.
Resource for Native Development (RFND), a local nonprofit organization created to support business development, worked with the RCAC Building Rural Economies (BRE) program to recruit participants for RCAC’s BRE “Start, Grow, and Revive Your Business” training curriculum. This brand new training curriculum draws from multiple disciplines involving entrepreneurship, community wealth values and value chain analysis, business planning and finance.
RCAC staff conducted a series of five training sessions over six months with an average of 15 participants attending each one. Participants included aspiring entrepreneurs with business ideas, existing small business owners, representatives from RFND, and Tribal Council. The first element of the curriculum educated participants on the entrepreneurial mindset—entrepreneurs as problem solvers who reach out to canvas potential customers. The second element of the training focused on demand and market, community wealth values, value chains, and partnerships. The third element focused on business planning and finance, budgeting, business expenses, and strategic planning for sustaining businesses. The combination of these elements proved to be very successful. RCAC was able to identify two businesses to assist with developing business plans, now in progress.
RCAC assistance has resulted in new leadership for RFND including two new board members who participated in the training, developing business plans for two businesses, developing capacity for RFND to provide business financing, and increasing support for a native arts business to refine their products, develop new products, and increase cost efficiencies. Participants received certificates of completion for the BRE Start, Grow, and Revive Your Business training and expressed great appreciation for RCAC’s support of the Tribal community.
