Milwaukee County's Building Bridges program will provide $10,000 grants and technical support to qualifying entrepreneurs.
It's an effort that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley says could make a difference during a time of economic uncertainty. Crowley and Economic Development director Celia Benton share more about the program.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Eddie Morales: What is the Building Bridges program?
David Crowley: This really came out during my State of the County address, and this is when I had opportunity to really call on my administration to come up with a way that we can build bridges between small businesses, entrepreneurs as well as the small business support organizations. But also how can we work with municipalities in helping them fill some of their commercial corridor spaces? We wanted to take a much stronger approach to supporting small businesses, helping to grow our economy and really to just provide more opportunities for workers throughout this process.
So that came with Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, (WEDC) dollars that we received — about $200,000 in grant funds, but we also have some funds here within Milwaukee County. With the help of Celia, we've created a business liaison position to help provide technical support and helping those businesses either expand or move into brick-and-mortar spaces across Milwaukee County, but also in conjunction with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation that gives us an opportunity to provide $10,000 grants as well.
Why is there a need for this program in the Community? What potential solutions does the program provide?
Celia Benton: We, in my opinion, have a wonderful array of ethnic and diverse chambers, community development finance institutions, but there isn't right now a front door where somebody can say, "Hey I want to start a business in name the municipality; how do I go about navigating. Where do I get access to capital? Who can help me navigate the process for getting my business plan or my financial projections looking good and how do I navigate the permit process for building out this brick-and-mortar space that I just love and I want to start my business in." For me, the real value add is that we will now be acting as that front door.
We're partnering directly with municipalities thinking about where are those commercial corridor spaces that you want support driving interest around. You'd love to see them activated, can you help me bring some vetted entrepreneurs from some of our chambers or other technical assistance providers? That is a sweet spot that we'll be able to offer through this program.
We’ll be helping build these bridges between that ecosystem and the municipalities leading with partnership, bringing people together and driving that commercial quarter activation while also fueling that entrepreneurship and connecting those dots. Again, that's where the need is. As [Crowley] stated it really does come down to a small business liaison, but we'll also be supporting through these grants that he mentioned and some other marketing efforts as well.
What concerns are you hearing from the community and small business owners about the state of the economy and how it's impacted running a business?
Crowley: I think we're hearing not only in Milwaukee County, but across the state and across the country about the level of uncertainty that folks are seeing in our current economy. Whether we're talking about small businesses that rely on supply chains and goods that are coming from overseas, they want to make sure that they can keep their prices low.
When you think about entrepreneurs, when you think about small businesses that are looking to expand and just do more if they're looking for more assistance, more technical assistance. We always see the commercials when they talk about, you know, you're working in the business versus on the business. Sometimes people need technical support, another level of expertise to figure out how they need to move forward.
But also, what's always good is resources in the form of dollars to help many of these small businesses. Whether that's helping them with brick-and-mortar or helping them to upgrade their POS systems or make better connections. Businesses, business owners, entrepreneurs, they see a level of uncertainty and they're looking to us as elected leaders to figure out what tools can we help provide them with to give them a certain level of certainty, but also to help them build capacity.
