GULP BUSINESS GROUP MEETING NOTES
From CFI
Meeting Summaries
From the 5/2/06 General Meeting Session:
The business group intends to firm up documents that they will use to begin visiting local businesses to introduce GULP, explain the GULP local business certification process, distribute the local business survey and solicit entries in the planned independent, local business directory. Drafts of the existing business project documents are available at: http://www.cloudforest.org/LOCAL_BUSINESS, all comments are welcome. An important part of the process will be to develop one or two standard paper sized, color window postings that provide some education as to the importance and benefit of supporting local business. The color flier can be used as a window posting to begin to create a wider awareness of the local business project and of GULP. The group will meet again in about two weeks to assign individuals blocks on which to canvas local businesses with the finalized package.
4/1/06 GULP Business Group Planning Meeting
In attendance: Sandy T, Ruth S, Dave S, Steve S, Sumo B, Cliff P, Scott C, with special guest appearance by Leeya T
The meeting started with members sharing their visions of what success would look like at the 1 year and 5 year horizons. Great and inspiring stuff (perhaps I will post those notes elsewhere … )
The group reviewed the possible business-related project list from the UPT, selected items that present members were still enthused about and added new items to generate the follow list of possible projects:
- Local business lending - Local venture capital [Side discussion on these first two items: both could be affiliated and/or affiliated with an existing credit union. Sumo noted that Dr. Lamb volunteered to do paperwork should we gather 300 initial members. Cliff noted that the Permaculture CU is able to draw national membership and might be a good model of a value-driven, focused CU applications, e.g., a “Solar Village Mendo” CU - Joint and influence existing groups/boards – would need to focus on key groups – The Downtown Merchants Association and Mainstreet Program are possibilities - Living Wage - Local business directory/local business promotion/local business association - Local currency - Briarpatch network – informal support network for small business - Local branding drive “Mendo Pure …” [Could link with the MON “Beyond Organics” effort] - Education drive: Information on the multiplier effect in a directory and elsewhere - Survey of monetary leakage - Vocational training/apprenticeships [discussion of “value added” materials from Canada / discussion of possible partnership with the Solar Living Institute] - Local sourcing preference ordinances for City & County - Provide an alternative to the paycheck loan rip-offs, possible partnering with Mendo-Lake UC - Survey of inputs needed that are not available locally - Creation of co-op businesses: farm, mobile meat, wood products, power generation, garments, bakery, transport co-op, media production [discussion of Mondragon as ideal model] - Creation of a post-carbon village with model post-carbon solutions for self-sufficiency [Could be a tourist attraction and a source for skill training]
The group determined to focus on three project “clusters:”
1) Education: Public information & vocational/skills training; 2) Business development: financing and supporting co-operative business and 3) developing a local business directory with associated certification process, education, and promotional campaign.
The group determined to focus on getting one action accomplished first and selected the local business campaign/directory and something that could be done this year and could help build group membership at the same time. We determined to investigate the possibility of getting a directory something like the Santa Fe model completed so that it would be used in the 2006 Holiday season, e.g., Oct/early Nov publication.
An initial list of project tasks and assignments are:
By 4/22 Develop business survey and criteria – try to close on this by 4/22 with all members reviewing the draft material that is on line at http://www.cloudforest.org/Business_Survey_Draft
Ruth will gather estimates from local printers Dave will get estimates of what competing directories charge
Scott to draft a “vision” statement to provide businesses a brief review of why we are doing this and what the benefits are from participation Scott to see about getting more copies of the Santa Fe directory to be used in presentations (if not, will use copies for pages from the existing copy)
Cliff, Scott and possibly other to test with a few local businesses for input after we get closer to final at a 4/6 meeting at the Brewery at 7pm
Unassigned – create mock-up page
Cliff to begin contacting local organization to schedule presentations/seek participation:
Rotary, Elks, Kiwanis, SCORE/SBA, Church groups, Masons, Oddfellows, Senior Center, Main Street program, West Co, Co-op (for distribution to their suppliers), Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Merchants, Farm Bureau, MON members
Need to draft article as possible 2nd UDJ column
5/1: Finalize survey and certification formats
By June 1:
Develop fliers to blanket business & leave for locations such as the Tortilla Factory
Need to have the web form and public pages for the survey and directory up. [Jenny & Sumo – can you keep pushing on the web form?]
Do presentations to organizations
Initial UDJ ad
Get add in the Independent as well.
To do:
Find funding sources. Dave suggests the Freys and savings bank as possible underwriters. Scott will investigate Need to develop an estimate of the scale of the directory in terms of page count/size and volume to be created
Design and create window stickers and counter displays for businesses at the various levels of certification
Data entry
Develop associated business campaigns
2006_03_14 GULP Business Group Meeting
The GULP Business Group has an informal discussion with Madelin Holtkamp of the Economic Development and Financing Corporation ( http://www.edfc.org/ ) and Jan Bell of the MendoLake Credit Union.
Among the great information relayed at the meeting, some highlights (please add your own) were:
MendoLake CU has recently become a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and is in the process of obtaining a grant that will allow it to provide more community development oriented initiatives such as affordable housing and low cost business banking services. MendoLake is locally focused and growing at a (well above average) 11% per year. It serves the community by focusing on local needs such as providing loans for mobile homes (which is unusual) on one hand but also increasing insured deposits up to $350K to provide a safe place for financially advantaged local residents to be able to bank and support the local economy. MendoLake CU works with many businesses developed by WestCo and provides some level of individual counseling to its member businesses when needed. MendoLake CU is also looking at developing some alternative to the high interest/predatory lending services. [Side comments: An excellent idea & one of the key needs/issues raised at the initial GULP meeting!!] MendoLake CU is also exploring providing small/unsecured business loans. It does not currently loan for bare land. It could possibly explore options such as partnering with subject area experts through Credit Union Service Organizations serving the Central Valley to expand agricultural loans down the road …
There is a need for gap closing loans in Mendocino (although capital is likely to be available for any solid business plan). For example, a young cardiologist might be needed in the area but might not (due to loans, etc) be able to buy or buy into an existing area practice absent investment support. Some “angel” investors may be developing on the coast that GULP could work with. Possible sources for business development/local financing mentoring are Golden Capital Network ( http://www.goldencapital.net/ ) [Side note: this group appears to work directly with counties/communities in some capacity through its “V3™” program, which has a “training product for communities seeking to diversify their economic development efforts to support their most promising entrepreneurial ventures.”] Other area “angel” investment organizations that might be worth investigating/contacting are Sierra angels http://www.sierraangels.com/ and North Bay angels http://www.northbayangels.com/
EDFC provides business credit to local job-creating businesses that cannot get the capital they need in the private sector. The bulk of EDFC funds come from the USDA, which does not allow EDFC to make agriculture loans. However, the local USDA office is another place we should consider working with. Other possibilities related to agriculture support are the Production Credit Union and Mendocino Savings Bank.
Also, the Sonoma County Land Trust (http://www.sonomalandtrust.org/ ) might be an excellent resource for Agriculture project start-ups as it has opportunities to work with existing land owners in the area who need help maintaining their properties.
Madelin shared the idea of a “community chip” project wherein people donated 1% of their purchases to a penny jar at local shops and the funds, which add up over a year, are then used for community projects such as park improvements.
Madelin noted that Ukiah area institutions are changing over time and may be interested in working with GULP. She stressed that GULP should make efforts to work with existing area institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce before focusing on creating new organizations. Among other things, the Chamber’s current efforts to develop local disaster preparedness plans suggests a major area of overlap with GULP issues.
Although it is a moving target, EDFC has created a database of available industrial land in the area, which will eventually be on the County GIS.
Saturday Morning 3/4: Bill Leland with the Santa Cruz Credit Union gave an excellent overview of the spectrum of options for community-oriented lending vehicles that are in place today (thanks again Dave for arranging the discussion). Existing institutions arrayed roughly in order from traditional/highly regulated to less traditional/more flexible/risky, include Community Development Banks, Credit Unions, Community Development Loan Funds, and Community Development Corporations-with all manner of possible interconnections and combinations. Bill answered a number of group questions and provided a wealth of suggestions about possible partnerships and paths for developing a local progressive lending option. 3/8/06 Scott C.
Thursday Evening 3/2: The group had an informal discussion roughly organized around sharing our individual interests related to local economics and, in particular, related to the issues highlighted at the last large GULP meeting. Those issues were: 1) local banking/credit unions/financing and 2) supporting local business via things like a Chamber of Commerce-like affiliation for independent, local business and activities such as a local business directory. Among the specific areas of interested noted were: exploring local use of retirement funds; micro-lending programs; developing a small business incubator resource with business support services & space; developing a community kitchen resource; partnering with existing progressing credit unions such as Santa Cruz or Inwood; local currency & bartering; developing partnerships with local business; looking for local business opportunities (e.g., gluten-free pastry, organic ravioli) or supporting people with local business plans (an organic Mexican food restaurant); developing an association of local businesses (e.g., the Briar Patch Network model); exploring the structure of the existing Ukiah Chamber of Commerce to see what we might learn from/about it; shop local campaigns and; developing a local business survey. (Again, please let me know if I missed any suggestion.) Dave circulated an information kit from amiba (http://www.amiba.net/ ) regarding local business alliance development (which, BTW, has a great example of a local business directory). Charlene and Ruth agreed to help coordinate & assemble ideas/suggested questions for a possible business survey. To begin the process, I have attached my thoughts for some possible survey questions. Please provide your comments, suggestions, additions, edits, etc. so that we can get this project rolling. The group also agreed that it should investigate the possibility of working with the Saturday Afternoon Club and possibly sharing its building space. Of particular interest was the idea of possibly using the kitchen facilities for an "up to code" community kitchen. 3/8/06 Scott C.
