- Hi, everyone. Thanks for making it. It is February 11, 2026. And this is the meeting of the Bloomington
- Urban Enterprise Association. We do have quorum. And yeah, go for it, Heather. Hi, welcome, everyone.
- Thanks for being here today. We will start with roll call. Kate, you want to kick us off with roll call, please?
- Hey, Rosa Barger. How are you? Felisa. Hi, Felisa Spinelli. Michael Hoever. Brad Whistler. Heather Robinson.
- B-U-E-A. Teagan Garner. Little louder. Teagan Garner. Say staff. Staff. Sorry. Did you know it's OK?
- We didn't give you the two first notes on that one. Two first time. D. Del Rosa, staff.
- Jane Coopersmith, BUBA. And then we have Emma Yoder, CBFI-friendly. And Brad? Brad. I'm Brad McConnell
- from LICB Business. Great. Is it too of a form if I step out for a call? I'm sorry. There's an urgent
- item. If not, that's OK. I'll just call them later. Sorry. There was an emergency. Sorry. Sorry. Once
- we get through the minutes, then yeah. OK.
- 12 minutes. All right. December minutes. Did anyone have any questions, comments, corrections to the
- minutes? Bless you. If I'm hearing nothing, I will ask for an approval and we will need to do a roll
- call on that as well since we have folks online. So again, Kate, do you want to lead us off?
- Kate Rothenberger, yes.
- Melissa Spivali, yes. Michael Hover, yes. Brad Whistler, abstain. I wasn't here for that meeting, so
- I can't tell you. You were. It was December. Oh, this was December. It was the budget approval. Yes,
- yes. Heather Robinson. Yes. OK. Heather Robinson, yes. Jane Goober says yes. All right. And it's approved.
- Oh, is it really approved?
- You can't talk about business if you don't have a quorum. It's okay. Thank you for trying to accommodate.
- A lot of things going on today. Director's report.
- Some general updates. Working on the loan conversion program right now. We do have six applicants. I'm
- slowly working through redacting information to get it to our little advisory committee. So still working
- on that. We do have a BUBA board calendar. I have worked that out and it is in the online pack and I'm
- sorry I did not get
- copies of it to you. But my general question is whether you would like a living calendar, and you don't
- have to decide now, or just like a static spreadsheet that I can get to all of you. So just think about
- what works best for you all and I'll make that happen. And I can accommodate each of you individually,
- however you'd like to do that.
- So in progress, we have some changes to the consultant RFQ that is on the calendar today for me to present
- or at least share. We've changed that up a little bit because I would like to introduce Tegan Gardner.
- She is my O'Neill fellow for the rest of this year, next.
- Highly capable and has been absolutely wonderful and helping me getting bored documents organized. Just
- helping me get myself together. So it looks like we don't actually need necessarily the position that
- we agreed upon in the budget. However,
- I will probably need assistance with the marketing aspect that we've talked about many times. So because
- it is in the budget, I will be asking the board to approve a change to that budget line for a marketing
- assistant since we do have the administrative assistant covered. And the hope is that you'll mark you'll
- focus on marketing since you've determined you don't have an operations administrative need. Yes.
- will grow grant participation and will grow, hopefully, revenue through? Absolutely. Yeah, I think that
- having someone who can help me constantly get the word out about these grants and scholarships,
- because A, spending the money is what this is kind of about, and B, getting people to see what we do
- so that they will be more willing to participate as far as our EZ program would be absolutely lovely.
- What else is in progress? We're working on ease of reminders and invoices. Hopefully we'll be sending
- them at the beginning of March. We'll say it's the second week of March. Those are a little bit harder
- to get together sometimes. But what we do with that, if you're not familiar, actually I'll just say
- it because
- You might not know of Dagen. How we get our revenue is through the enterprise zone investment deduction
- program. Certain businesses participate within the zone and it works sort of like a tax payment where
- they get an 80% discount and we get the other 20% to make like grants and scholarships and that's how
- we're funding. We send out communications and correspondence to remind people that this is coming up.
- It's very much courtesy.
- to do that, but we get response from it and we'd like to get that revenue so we can continue to do the
- work that we do. Additionally, I have mentioned many times that we have a very tight quorum now that
- Mary's term is up and Phil has resigned and we've also always had a resonant
- seat open. Please, if you have any recommendations, please have people apply. They do need to be residents
- within the zone. So we are looking, as far as the council appointments, they need to be of two different
- political parties. It doesn't matter what the political parties are, but each resident has to be from
- a different political party.
- Then we also have, I'm also working on a downtown action plan. It's still in its draft phase. It's with
- the consultant right now. This is a project to revitalize the downtown through programming
- and not necessarily infrastructure.
- So a lot of business involvement, community involvement. So we're working on a draft of this with Downtown
- Bloomington, Inc. The consultant that we are working with is Downtown Strategies, which is a part of
- Retail Strategies, who helped us implement a small business technical assistance program. It's all online.
- So people and residents have been utilizing that, and it's
- It's been really great. And I've taken the course and it's fantastic. So if you're interested, I am
- happy to talk to you about it. We have that service for free to all residents of the city of Bloomington
- until August of 2026. So they've helped us with this action plan. They do this in several different
- cities. They've done this with all sorts of college towns. And so it's very robust.
- There are some things that are very, very bite-sized for the community. There are things that are much
- larger that are policy changes that could really help revitalize the downtown. So once that final version
- is available and presented by DBI, I would like to give a presentation to the BUEA because I think that
- this organization could do a lot of really great work within that plan.
- Other than that, unfortunately, we will not have a financial report today. There were some transactions
- that need to be finalized and Cheryl is under the weather, so we will not be having that. We were going
- to push that to March.
- Does anyone have any questions about anything before I ask the board, once again, to vote on changing
- the budget? Yeah, just to back up a little bit. I know we did a roll call on minutes, but didn't you
- need an approval before? Oh, sorry. Oh, do we? Sorry. Did I not get a first? I motion to approve.
- Thank you. Sorry. We need a second. Second. OK.
- great. We had the roll call. May the minutes reflect the first and the second on that. Sorry, amount
- of practice. We didn't meet last one. Yeah, we are a little rusty coming back. I did have a question
- on, well, actually, let me back up as well. One quick thing. I know Mary Morgan
- her term ended, and so she's decided not to continue on the BUAA board. And she's not with us today.
- And since we didn't get to meet last month, which would have been her last meeting, I just want for
- the minutes to acknowledge Mary and the work that she's done on the committee and just to thank her
- publicly for her time and all of the work that she
- she has done for the BUBA and we wish her well and hope to see her again in other capacities. So just
- a thanks to Mary noted for the minutes. That does actually bring up one more item that I forgot to add.
- Mary was the secretary of this board. We will need to elect a new secretary. However, I would like to
- wait until we have the additional
- board members before we do that. I think that we can probably go at least one meeting without that happening.
- Okay. But, um, regardless by April, we will have to probably make a decision on that. Okay. That seems
- good. Yeah. Um, and then I do have a question. I know you're looking for an approval to change the budget. So the,
- The budget for the admin originally was $25,000. Am I remembering that correctly? OK. And I see you
- have the draft in here for what you're seeking for either a marketing assistant or potentially contracted
- services. Is that fair to say? That's within the realm of reason, for sure. OK. And so I wonder, does
- it make sense for us to,
- approve the change today, which I mean, the money essentially is already allocated, you know, through
- the budget, because you don't know exactly what you might end up like as you cast the net, so to speak,
- which may be, you know, a person who does marketing out of their home, it might be, you know, a local
- firm that does some work. And so depending on what
- that result is it may change the need. So I don't know. I'm not trying to hamstring you. I'm just asking
- the question. So if you come up with a firm who can do this work for you, but they say, oh, hey, this
- is going to be $35,000 to do that, but we can do all of this and more potentially, do we want to then
- have to come back to
- to maybe make another adjustment. That's my only thoughts. I see what you're saying. So would it be
- better to have Dee move through the RFP process and then come back to affirm? Yes, once she's identified.
- Because I understand this isn't going to be a city employee, correct? Correct. So that to me then makes
- it a little bit uncertain as to what you might
- you know, find in the resources you need. So really I want to just offer the flexibility to seek out
- what's needed versus. I'm happy to go through the RFP process and then come back to the board with what
- may be the max goal. I know that within the RFP sometimes, I think sometimes I have to state what my
- cap is or something to that effect.
- Or is that old procurement process? I'm not... Let's talk to the controller's office about what has
- to be indicated. I've only done a couple of them so... If you have to indicate a number, just it will
- indicate the budget number that was approved. Okay, for sure. Okay. All right. Just offering that, is
- that helpful? I guess that's... Yeah, I actually hadn't really thought of it that way, but yes, I think
- that that would probably be helpful instead of having to do two motions. Okay.
- So changing it and then coming back for more money if the board is okay Okay. All right. Great.
- Good deal. Thanks All right. Well then Since we've gotten through that and we don't have financials
- then I guess allies for community business and CDFI can take it away My name is Emily I work at CDFI and
- Yeah, if you don't know anything about us or you just need a refresher, we are a nonprofit
- here in Bloomington that connects small businesses, affordable housing developers, and child care providers
- with CDFIs.
- which are community development financial institutions. And they specialize in flexible, affordable
- loans for underserved communities. So we're trying to bring those CDFIs here. And we've partnered with
- Brad at Allies for Community Business. And he is the CEO there. And he's going to give a short presentation
- on what they do and how we're partnering with them with our loan. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you
- to all of you for the time
- Um, what I propose to do is then somewhere between five and seven minutes walking through what we do
- and how we do it and then stop. And then to the extent they'd like to have a discussion about any of
- those points, I'd be delighted to do so. But obviously I'll be respectful of your time since you've
- been so graceful, uh, in allowing me to just take it all. So I'll begin by sharing a screen, uh,
- which I will, uh, ask if you can give us this too, please. Thank you.
- Do you see that? Yes. So start, as always, with who A4CB is and what we do. Our vision is that entrepreneurs
- from any background, any background at all, can start to grow a business that can create true wealth
- for their families and their communities. And importantly, our mission here is to provide all three
- of the capital and the coaching and the connections that entrepreneurs need to grow great businesses
- for jobs for all their communities. So since the pandemic began,
- talking just this 2020, we've dispersed about $8 million and helped 25,000 businesses with our coaching,
- over 36,000 businesses and funding. We serve all of Illinois and Indiana, and we're based in Chicago.
- And frankly, in my humble opinion, an overweighted amount of those dollars have gone to Illinois. And
- I'm taking it by myself, we have much more of our work focused on Indiana. And there's one of the reasons
- why I'm delighted that we partner with
- Emma John and the rest of the folks at CBET-Friendly Bloomington, the same way we're doing in Evansville
- and in South Bend and in Michigan City and in Gary and other places, where we recognize that there are
- entrepreneurs that A4CB doesn't directly reach because we're not physically present, and yet we want
- to serve, and therefore we need to partner with people like yourselves who know the entrepreneurs and
- know the area, and we can be there right behind you in order to provide these services. So it's like
- all the services are now,
- And again, I'll do this quickly, and then we'll go to whatever questions you'd like. So the capital
- we provide is a form of loans and grants. We provide a lot of money and grants in partnership with either
- governmental entities or philanthropic entities, banks, whoever wants to get free money, an entrepreneur,
- we're here to make sure it happens as a program administrator. But we spend most of the time here talking
- about our lending. And our loans are between $500 and $500,000. And we do so in a way that's a lot different than most
- lenders because we're not a heavily regulated financial institution in the way that classic banks and
- credit unions are. We can be more flexible, and I'll tell you how we go about using that flexibility.
- So let's start with the fact that we don't use credit scores at all. We don't put liens on cars and
- houses. It leads up to $250,000. We look at how well the entrepreneur, the business owner, has managed
- their debts over the last two years.
- And whether there's a plausible path based on the cash flow of the business, to be able to repay us.
- That's how we do it. We'll talk more in detail about that in a second. We're quite happy to work with
- folks who have ITINs around social security numbers, who need smaller loans that banks typically can
- provide, who don't have great credit, collateral and such. And we try very hard to be fast. We totally
- recognize that our competition, in our view, is not the traditional bank branch. If you need a loan
- from a bank, you should get it.
- because you want that long-term relationship. We'll help entrepreneurs get connected to banks that we
- think will be eligible. Our competition is the online lenders who typically hedge fund back, fintech-driven,
- who will provide you with quick money, but they won't tell you how much it's going to cost in a really
- transparent way until you get down to fine prints. And then you're going to struggle to repay that typically.
- We've seen it over and over again. So we need to be fast and present wherever we can be online and offline
- for entrepreneurs. So they borrow from us instead of from those other options because we will provide
- mission-focused pricing in a way that retains the wealth with the entrepreneur, rather than extracting
- the wealth and taking it elsewhere. So our APRs will range from 6% to 15%, just depending on what you're
- trying to do. We'll always talk about, first, what an entrepreneur's trying to do, and what structure
- is best for them. We'll talk about more details in a second. And then we'll tell them upfront, okay,
- given that, here's how much it's gonna cost. Is that interesting to you? And if so, we'll proceed. Okay,
- first of all, I should say, all of this is at a4cb.org.
- where we list every single word of our credit policy, all the services we provide, so that any entrepreneur
- who wants to, if they feel like it, can figure out for themselves how they're talking to us, how much
- should they be eligible for, and what structures are available, what price that would be, in order to
- be kind of as present and as transparent as it possibly can be with everybody they're seeking to serve.
- So, when I went here briefly, specifically for Bloomington, the relationship we have built with CFI
- and Bloomington, and I'll note that
- different than we recently made a $50,000 investment in us, which we're going to repay at 2% interest.
- So we can take those dollars and plow those dollars into the entrepreneurs we want to lend to. So I
- view that as really important and interesting seed capital. But know that we're going to bring in money
- from elsewhere and we're going to serve absolutely everybody we can in the greater Bloomington area
- using other funds as necessary in order to make sure that everybody who's available to us to serve,
- we can serve. So we're not limited by the $50,000, but it's a very, very good start.
- so it gets moving. Okay, so how do we do our lending? Three types. Term loans, it's functionally kind
- of you can think about like a mortgage, where it's you get all the money up front, repay it, and fix
- the basis all the way through until it's fully advertised to the last payment. Lines of credit, which
- function more like a credit card, you can borrow, repay, borrow, repay, borrow, repay. Or revenue-based
- financing, which is very different, in which you get all the money up front, but you pay back on a variable basis,
- each month depending on how much you earned the previous month. So in that case, for growth businesses,
- we're trying to match the dollar they need to repay to us with the speed at which they're generating
- the revenues. And if they have a bad month, pay us very little. If they have a great month, pay us more.
- And that way, we match their on cash flow basis with the needs of that entrepreneur. So I'll talk for
- a minute about how does we evaluate for these entrepreneurs? What does it be also for? As I mentioned
- before, we're looking at
- your credit over the last two years, and you're available on cash. This is how, and I won't drain all
- this detail, because I'm gonna share this presentation with you afterwards, so you have all this detail,
- so I'm gonna tell you to take, like, just so you know, so again, all of this is A4CB door, uh,
- slash loans. But principally, we're looking at your credit report, you click a box, we go get
- that information for you electronically, bring it in, we evaluate it about 60 seconds' time, and we're
- looking at the three things you see on the screen for the past 24 months, the past 12 months of today,
- What is it that we read off of your credit report? We did size the loan based on 150% of what you have
- already successfully proven that you can repay in the form of a month of payment in the last 12 months.
- There's a cap to startup businesses. We're delighted to help people who have nothing more than an idea
- but write a line as much to them because there's nothing to evaluate on track record there other than
- the entrepreneur's own credit history. So if that doesn't work,
- we wouldn't switch to looking at financial statements. In this way, we ask for authority from the applicants,
- go pull their bank account information. There's sort of a third widget, secure widget, ID password.
- We would be able to do four of them to keep it easy as possible. We do a quick calculation,
- global debt-to-income ratio using that information. And that doesn't work either. Then we move to what
- we call our step three. These would be very small loans, but really for here,
- Anybody who's got debts that are current and they've got more than $1 in the bank, yeah, we're gonna
- make a small loan to them to help them to build their credit over time because they couldn't qualify
- in any other way for us and presumably anybody else. And in this case, we're gonna help folks who otherwise
- can be ineligible for capital at all and give them something to get moving to help to rebuild their
- credit and be able to give you that street pay. So that's how we think about term loans and lines of
- credit for the smaller size of $25,000. And for term loans and lines of credit, they're larger
- It's exactly the same logic, except for it being an or, it's an and. So take the credit policy side
- of it that I just mentioned, and the financial statement side of it, from the combination of both, your
- bank time information, we also collect tax returns through larger loans. Put it all together, we give
- them out for you and say, here's the amount for which you qualify for either term loan or line of credit.
- Okay, so that's what we think about credit policy. There's no kind of backroom committee where we then
- sort of value all kinds of other things that are non-financial and non-factual.
- It just is what it is, and we do this in this way, so we strip out bias, we try to be fast and present
- for entrepreneurs, and we communicate really clearly what it is that's required in order to be able
- to borrow from us. So that's the story on turbulence lines of credit. To finish the overall story, I'll
- talk a little bit about revenue-based financing, which is different. That's different by design. So
- this is for the entrepreneurs who are really ready to grow, but who don't want to give up any of their
- upside in the form of taking venture capital or equity investments, where, sure, you get that money,
- We also give up some ownership. And so if you end up doing great later, you have to give a lot of that
- to those other people. And in our case, road abuse financing doesn't require that. You get all the money
- upfront, you're paying, you're done. Like all the money, all the upside, all the profit you generate
- is yours. So here's how it works. We are requiring that you are really sizable, and we've got a track
- record here. So at least two years of history, at least $40 million of revenue last year, we didn't
- work with you to find a growth plan that we use as a basis to create
- a sensible estimate for your projections wherever we grow over the next five years. We then calculate
- gross and net margins for you in order to figure out, what can you plausibly repay here based on the
- last 12 months of your business and where you think you're going over the next five years. And then
- the way the repayments are structured is that repayments will be somewhere between 5% and 7% of the
- previous month's revenue with a minimum and maximum that we would take in a month. And we had this maximum,
- by the way,
- So that if you had this huge month where you did like a million in revenue, because all these crazy
- contracts came in, we want you to keep most of that. So we put an unofficial cap on that rather than
- taking full, you know, 5% to 7% of that revenue. The APR for the whole one is going to be somewhere
- between 6% and 12% typically, particularly with that cap in place on that given month. So you pay 1.25
- the initial principal. Once you do that, you're done. You can pay any time you want. No pre-band penalty
- or anything like that.
- Obviously that will change the calculated APR because of the fact that if you pay faster, that means
- that the APR will be higher because of the term, but we'll work with the entrepreneur to explore that.
- And then at the end of the term, which is somewhere between 16 and 72 months, depending on who you're
- working with, the entrepreneur, if any left, that's okay. We'll then take what's left and just turn
- that into a normal old three-year fully advertising term loan so they get way more time than even the
- original term in order to repay the balance.
- And the only time we take any collateral is for the loans are about $250,000. We'll look for some security
- against that because those are really large loans for us, given that our average loan size, they've
- received like $15,000. So we're making a loan that big with some security, but otherwise we don't care
- about that. Okay. So I want to wrap up by saying that the capital we provide is complemented by the
- coaching that we provide. And so we have group coaching and individual coaching.
- But most importantly here, whenever an entrepreneur is looking for any assistance at all from us where
- they're trying to figure out what should I do next with the business or how should I get that business
- started or all the way to the end of the spectrum. I've been around this business for four years and
- now I'm trying to think through how can I monetize that asset and retain that wealth for me and my family.
- All throughout that spectrum, we've got four full-time business coaches really experienced through nothing
- but have conversations with entrepreneurs all day every day, helping them think through what they're
- trying to accomplish and what the next step should be.
- completely unrelated to whether or not an entrepreneur is interested in or eligible for a loan or a
- grant from us. We've read this coaching, regardless, and we're delighted to help anybody in Boone Center
- who's interested in it. We also do run a group, kind of class-based, a group program. We talk to a classical
- kind of mother webinarers, that kind of thing, for particular subject matter, and we do cohort-based
- work as well. All of that is largely focused on the Chicago land area. And finally, A1CB.org contains
- all this stuff.
- So as usual, there's the usual kind of suite of ways in which people can stay in touch with us. And
- that's probably the first port of call. I'll send back to Bob on any details, or he can directly to
- me. Thank you, Brad. I think it hit five minutes. So I'll be happy to help in whatever way I can if
- there's any questions. Do any of you guys have questions for him? So the partnership between our local
- CDFI-friendly Bloomington,
- Is that focused specifically here in Bloomington or is that in the region? If it's kind of in the Bloomington
- area, what are some of the other community organizations that you might be connecting with? Of course,
- I'm thinking about the mill, our local incubator and startup for startup businesses and so forth. Are
- you guys also marketing this and promoting that within our own
- our local community of entrepreneurs. Yeah. Yeah, I can start and I'd love for you to add, please. Yeah,
- go ahead. We're really excited about this because one, the dollars that we borrowed from CFA Friendly
- in Bloomington, we're going to invest within Bloomington Proper. But all of the rest of the entrepreneurs
- around the kind of the greater area, rich in serving, again, through dollars that we've gotten out otherwise,
- and the coaching is political to everybody.
- You know the area better than we do. And that's saying the fact that I find myself in Bloomington a
- lot, personally, because my son's a freshman. But going back and forth, that's not the same thing as
- being president and working with entrepreneurs every day, hardly. So we're really excited about working
- through that, through yourselves, through everybody else who is local and much more knowledgeable to
- help us to get connected to all their pieces of entrepreneurial support within the Bloomington area.
- So that we can, first of all, make sure that people know we're here. And secondly, provide really good,
- timely, responsive service to any entrepreneur who expresses their willingness to work with us. So it
- can be a mixture of the two, I think, where we do our part, but also work through yourself to get closer
- to it. And what would you add to that? In terms of promoting it here, we're partnering with the ISPDC,
- the Indiana Small Business Development Center. So they know about this loan partnership.
- They've started on their social media. If there's anybody that's interested in financing, I know that
- they would share it with those people. I hadn't thought of the mill yet. I don't know why. So that's
- something. The go-to place. Definitely. If you want to find entrepreneurs in Bloomington, you should
- definitely go to the Dimension Mill and talk with those folks there. They're always, I know, looking for
- capital and so forth. So that could be definitely a place to stop in there after this meeting. So that's
- someone that we can be advertising these to. And then we're putting it on all of our socials. It was
- already in the Bloomington Chamber newsletter and on their website. So we are trying to promote it here
- in our community. We could use help. If you guys know of any small business owners or someone that's
- wanting to start up a small business, feel free to
- point them in our direction, we'd be happy to talk to them. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Brad, thanks
- for that presentation. And I know the answer, but this comes up from the public. And so I think it would
- be good to answer it on the record. And then the board can know it in case it comes up in other settings.
- But the interest rates are high right now, relatively high. But CDFIs tend to have higher interest rates.
- And so we're trying to obviously facilitate capital for
- businesses who need it and maybe haven't had great access to it, can you talk about the 1.25x or the
- higher interest rates and how we get there and just, yeah, communicating about that a little?
- Great question. Thanks. So a couple things. First, we try to make sure that our rates are roughly half
- as expensive as the average credit card rate. And we pin it that way because credit cards are typically,
- although not exclusively,
- The only way that small business owners that we serve are able to access any capital involvement because
- they are inundated as a personal matter, not their business, personal credit cards get in, and that's
- what they use when they need liquidity that they don't have directly from the business. Again, to repeat,
- if somebody can get a traditional loan from a bank or a credit unit, we want to encourage that because
- that establishes the long-term pathway towards having a long-term relationship, hopefully not just with
- the institution, but with an actual banker.
- And that's where you can go to get continual kind of service as your business is used to grow. But most
- of the people who we work with are not eligible and can't get anything at any price from a bank or a
- credit union. And therefore, we're trying to make sure that we're pricing appropriately to help those
- folks. So roughly half of the average rate of credit cards we're trying to pin are rates. And the second
- part of it is that A4CB will not charge the rate that would be necessary for A4CB to break even.
- So we intentionally lose money on every loan. And the reason why we do that is because if we were to
- cover all of our costs inclusive of the loan losses that we intend to potentially take, but we know
- we're going to take, we take so much more risk on entrepreneurs than any other financial institution
- we ever can even consider, if you include the loss rate plus the interest we pay on our debt, which
- is very low but not zero,
- You kind of, to add those, before you even get into paying for staff or technology or any of that, like
- separate, we're already above what we charge. So then I gotta go off and raise all the land to be as
- necessary in order to cover the difference, but that's my job, so it's fine, I'll do that. We gotta
- raise five and a half million dollars a year to cover the cost that we otherwise would charge in higher
- interest to the entrepreneurship circle, but we're just not gonna do that, because that's not who we
- are. So that's why the range will be somewhere between
- 6% APR, not interest rate, APR is inclusive of all fees, everything. So we're in between 6% and 15%.
- Our average APR will land right about 9%, between 9% and 10%. And that's very, very competitive with
- the way that you can borrow from banks right now if you can get a loan at all. And again, most people
- can't. So that's how we think about pricing, which is hard to put on a postcard, but it kind of gives
- you a feel for what the nuance is
- Thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate it. Can I follow up on that? On your revenue-based loans, the 1.25x
- payback, was that over six years? Is that what I understand? Yeah. So when we listen to what entrepreneurs
- are trying to do and calculate with them what their plausible growth path is going to be, we will either do
- a 60 month, 66 month, or a 72 month term, depending on how much time we think they're gonna need. So
- it's between 16, it's between five and six years, that's the length of the term. And we do that in a
- way that again tries to marry up what we think will be the average payments, it's always gonna go up
- and down, it's the whole point of the product, but it's gonna be an average down over that say five,
- five and a half or six year term. And if we hit it exactly right,
- than in like, say for example, the 72nd month, they'll make their last payment, they'll never happen,
- because a lot of it will be a little faster or more because of Google nature. But yes, that's how we
- think about it. So yeah, but it's, regardless of the timeline, when you hit that 1.25x, it's done. And
- if I'm right, that's a substantially lower equivalent APR, right? If 1.25x over six years is like 4%, right?
- Yeah, it works out to about 6%. We're including in that not just the interest, which is what you're
- thinking about there, but also the origination fees and stuff. So there are some fees upfront on top
- of that? OK. That's right. Yeah. Got it. So the all-in cost APR fees and everything. Most of
- those revenue-based financing loans, we're going to assume we're going to do an estimated APR of about
- 6%, which is damn cheap money on flexible payments like that.
- Yeah, I had a quick question. I know that ISBDC does business valuation. They give those services. Do
- Allies for Community Business offer that in the coaching, or is that something that you would want a
- lender to have when they come to you guys? Yeah, I'm up two minds here. One, we're always eager to provide
- our services. This is free. It's really high quality and so forth.
- But I do think that having a local, present, on-site business coaching mentor, however you phrase that,
- the local business development center, there's a real value in that. So maybe the best way, in my view,
- to position A4CVs for coaching services is to add extra capacity to the coaching that's already present
- locally. And so we're always there and delighted to help, but we don't want to sort of
- serve ourselves in front of the local people, because we're out there working with them when they can.
- We're always there. And yes, I think we think about the coaching we provide along a continuum of time,
- and think about the entrepreneur journey. So the very first coaching activities that we typically work
- with entrepreneurs on, and then nothing other than an idea, is let's talk about establishing the business.
- How do you do that? What's required? And so we talk about those basic building blocks of
- the registration insurance, the basics, getting into that account, and so forth. And then over time,
- we'll grow and have more sophisticated, complicated conversations about business planning, strategic
- planning, pricing, and the rest, depending what industry you're in. So we're always eager to have those
- conversations at whatever timeline that the entrepreneur needs. But I would like us to be supportive,
- I think, of others rather than sort of stand in front of the services globally, if possible. Thank you.
- Does anybody else have any more questions about this? I do. You spoke briefly about grants. What type
- of grants do you provide? We provide grants based on the partner who's going to provide the dollars
- and for whom we are serving as program administrator. So we give you a couple flavors of that that we've
- done recently. One, we partner with City of Chicago in order to provide grants in order to help entrepreneurs
- who have a physical storefront to be able to rehab that.
- City didn't have any idea how to manage pay applications, GCs, all kinds of stuff. So we did that on
- behalf of the city. They gave us the money, we took care of the rest. So that's just kind of one example.
- Another is we recently worked with Etsy in order to help artistic businesses. And that had nothing to
- do with physical infrastructure. Instead, it was about
- an artist who had an idea that they wanted to be able to invest in and grow with a small amount of free
- capital where they would have no logical way to repay, because it's so speculative of what they're trying
- to do with their art. And so NT worked through us, and we were to find entrepreneurs and serve them
- in a way that was really efficient, that got the dollars that NT would like to give to artists, but
- had no idea how to do. We helped them to sort of do both finding and disbursement, and after
- that pre-coaching, we helped those artists grow.
- So all sorts of flavors aside from that, but I want to give you kind of an idea of what our administration
- might be doing with credit. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? I don't believe so. OK. I have two
- more announcements. So to go along with everything that Brad has been saying, we are hosting a webinar
- with Allies for Community Business for anyone that is interested in small businesses or anyone that
- just wants to learn more about what they do. And that's going to be March 5.
- at 11 a.m. It'll be a Zoom, so we'll have that information on our social medias. And then, I also did
- want to say we recently announced two new lending partnerships, one being the one with allies, and then
- the other is a 2.25 million line of credit with Old National Bank, German American, and First Financial
- that can be used for all of our focus areas, so outside of small businesses, affordable housing, and
- childcare. It's great. And that's all over the region. That's not just Bloomington.
- So yeah, we're really excited for that partnership and this one as well. And Brad, thank you for sharing
- everything that you did. That was insightful of you, so. Yeah. Thank you, Brad. We really appreciate
- your time. Thank you very much for it. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thanks. Thank
- you guys so much. Thank you, Emma. Thanks, Brad. All right. All right. All right. What's left?
- One from last year, this is from this year. We have any general discussion or any general items that
- the board would like to present? Does anyone have anything? Yeah, I just have a little something. Just,
- is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, okay. It's just about the vacant council seat. As always,
- Usually it's easy for us to find a Democrat living in the zone and then it's impossible to find a Republican
- or other political party person living in the zone. So right now I just want to update you all. I'm
- doing an interview with someone who applied and hopefully I can make a case to council that we can get
- this person recommended by my little interview committee and then approved before our next council meeting,
- which is next
- Wednesday, and then they would be able to then be at the March board meeting. It's a little bit hard
- because council likes more leeway time than what we're going to be able to give with our interview of
- the people. So hopefully, they'll understand that we have quorum issues and we can get that done. Great.
- Kate, does that word D, does that mean the neighborhood? And thank you for that.
- The neighborhood resident spots, are those both council appointments? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yep. Thank you,
- Kate. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kate. Thank you. Anything? Anyone else? Oh, I do have a question about
- the loan forgiveness. Are we having, I know we've got six applicants.
- Are you having any movement on those that maybe had fallen delinquent on their previous? I am still
- making efforts to contact them. Okay. I didn't know if, yeah. Whether it was just those that currently
- still have an outstanding balance or? We have had a few that are delinquent. We also have some that
- have dissolved their businesses and I'm just trying to get them to just go through the process so we
- can get it done officially and get the paperwork done.
- appropriately. So yeah, it's been difficult trying to contact them because some of their emails are
- now defunct. And so it's a little bit of investigating and trying to figure that out. So and, you know,
- you can't, I wish I could just call the Secretary of State and be like, Hey, can you give me all of
- this person's information so I can find them somewhere? But that's just not how how that works. So yeah.
- Yeah, it's nice to at least that we have six that have
- submitted information, so hopefully through your continued contact communication efforts, we'll have
- more. I don't know, do we put a timeline on that at all, or is this just kind of a rolling, you know,
- I don't really remember if we had like a goal in mind of like by summer we'd like to air something?
- So the loans are to be paid back by the end of June. Okay. So I really feel that, you know,
- By mid-second quarter, I don't think that by mid-second quarter, I'm just going to have to have to cut
- it off because we need to get everything processed and moving along. And so I mean, I'll still try to
- make attempts. But yeah, I think that mid-second quarter is probably when I'll get full participation,
- if there is any. And I will make that known to those that I am reaching out to. So. OK. Great.
- Thank you. All right. Anything else, anyone?
- All right, great. Hey, we're in the meeting early. Thank you so much, everyone.