Introducing a New Member to Our Team

Kayley Lofstrom has joined CIE as the Community Enterprise Administration Assistant. She recently graduated Gonzaga University with a B.A. in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship Studies. As a local to Sequim, she appreciates and knows the community well. After living and studying in Spokane and Madrid, she finds herself back on the Olympic Peninsula, exploring the outdoors and being with family and friends. 

Kayley’s goals in business include bringing awareness to sustainable value chains, focusing on quality and environmentalism, and creating strong relationships with customers and surrounding communities.  She is working in CIE’s Port Angeles office, focusing on outreach, intake, coordinating training logistics, managing our event calendar, and helping us keep our client management system data entered and up to date. 

CIE Receives Grant from First Federal Community Foundation

CIE is thrilled to kick off 2020 with the generous support of the First Federal Community Foundation. With the Foundations support for our First Step Business Program, we’ll be able to help many more emerging entrepreneurs start small businesses on the North Olympic Peninsula. 

“This support from First Federal Community Foundation is so helpful,” said Rick Dickinson, CIE’s North Olympic Peninsula Business Advisor. “Thank you for believing in our vision to build a thriving small business ecosystem in Clallam and Jefferson Counties.”

“We are grateful to have the chance to support the good and very important work of CIE,” said Jan Simon, Executive Director of the First Federal Community Foundation.

First Federal Community Foundation is a private 501(c)(3) charitable corporation launched in 2015 with a generous gift of stock and cash from the parent company of First Federal Bank, when the bank was converted to a publicly traded company. With this gift, First Federal Bank made clear its commitment to continue its tradition of supporting the communities it serves.

In that same spirit, First Federal Community Foundation’s mission is to improve the quality of life in the communities in which First Federal Bank maintains full-service branches.

Committed to creating broad impact, the Foundation has contributed more than $3.5 million since 2015 to qualified organizations that provide community support, address the availability of affordable housing, and deliver economic and community development projects in Clallam, Jefferson, Kitsap and Whatcom Counties.

Taala Fund wins grant, selects CIE as project consultant

The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) grant is a two-year grant that will focus on Native American small and medium businesses on the Quinault Indian Reservation and throughout Grays Harbor County.

A Taala Fund selection committee has selected the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship as the consulting firm for the project.  

“We are excited to lead this important project that is sure to greatly benefit the people and communities of the Quinault Indian Nation. We look forward to launching this project and meeting the community,” stated Jacob Cravey, Project Lead, for the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

During the first year the consultants will conduct business surveys and interviews to harvest business training and technical assistance needs, develop online and in-person training modules to meet those needs, develop materials (hard copy and electronic) under each module, and create a training program schedule. The consultants will develop an evaluation tool to measure the impacts of the program.

During the second year Taala Fund will implement the training and technical assistance program by following through with the training schedule, garnering feedback through pre and post assessments, and adjusting the program as needed.

Natalie Charley, Executive Director, emphasized, “In order to garner participation, we will be utilizing creative techniques to draw in folks to survey or interview.  This may include dinners, incentives, drawings, and more.”

The Project Team will keep the community posted on upcoming events!

Save the Date: Washington Coast Works Fastpitch & Awards Ceremony

We've been hard at work in King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties, but did you know we're also very active on the Olympic Peninsula as well? For the past four years, we have worked to design and implement the Coast Works business competition. Washington Coast Works is now in its third year, 45 participants, 6 new businesses financed) and are now leading the development of the Coast Works Alliance. 

Since the beginning, we have helped develop the theory of change and business plan for The Nature Conservancy’s Emerald Edge initiative, highlighting the role of small-scale, grassroots “eco-preneurship” as a conservation strategy in coastal rural and indigenous communities in Washington, British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. In Southeast Alaska, we led the design of the Path to Prosperity business competition (now in its fifth year, 60 participants, 15 new businesses financed) and contributed to the development of the Southeast Sustainable Partnership. This work led to the Washington Coast Works business competition in our own Washington State. 

On November 9th, the top businesses will meet in Sequim to pitch and win prizes to help their sustainable businesses launch and grow. You're invited to join us. If you'd like to read more about Coast Works, visit our special initiative web site at www.coastworks.org, or check it out on Facebook. Mentors, sponsors, and of course businesses are always welcomed. 

What is a Community Enterprise, anyway?

We’ve been asked before what a “Community Enterprise” really is. For CIE, it’s the bones of our programs, the program that does what we mainly do—helping people start businesses. While our name, the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship may seem formal, CommunityEnterprise™ is meant to hold a more grassroots mentality and way of starting a business.

It all starts with an idea. Not funding or a business loan, not a business plan necessarily, but an idea that you think about, do some research about, and put out to the world. We believe in starting with what you have, where you’re at, and not waiting until the “if onlies” come true. It goes beyond that though, because anyone can start a business with the right tools and the tools are available in so many different formats, structures, and styles. Really, there's something out there for every learning style and business building style. 

Can anyone start a CommunityEnterprise though? Well, yes, they can. The real questions is WILL they, and will you?

That leads us back to what is a CommunityEntprise. It’s a business, certainly. It could be a nonprofit’s social enterprise wing, or a small business started in a living room, or a business that starts with staff and a physical location and even a loan.

When our members think of when they think of a “community enterprise” they probably think about a business mentor who helped them along the way, and their own plans to help someone else in the future. It could be an informal mentorship (the store across the street from yours warned you that you really do need quite a bit of Halloween candy to keep up with the neighborhood trick-or-treating event) or it could be more formal (someone who has been in business for years and years sits down with you to discuss how to grow your business without neglecting your family and personal life).

A CommunityEnterprise is built from the ingredients of:

• People: A CommunityEnterprise helps others, thinking about social justice, hiring locally, providing living wages, and considering the health and wellbeing of any staff

• The Planet: A CommunityEnterprise puts more back into the environment as a regenerative business rather than a business that takes and takes, leaving the world worse off for the sake of the bottom line

• And Profit: Yes, profit is important to a CommunityEnterprise. The entrepreneur (that’s you!) must be able to support themselves or improve their lives through their business.

This includes buying and selling locally, giving back when possible and however possible, creating a business or product that is a does good for the world.

So, how do you do this? Start with why, as Simon Sinek proposes. CIE’s why is to help create CommunityEnterprises. What is your why?

And please don’t stop with “why.” Think about who your own personal “why” creates economic and entrepreneurial opportunities for you and your community.

Need help? You’re invited to join CommunityEnterprise. Or drop us an email if you want to talk more.