In 2021, VtSBDC was chosen as one of 51 grantees nationwide to be part of the Small Business Administration’s two-year Community Navigator Pilot Program. According to the SBA, the Community Navigator Pilot Program was designed to “reduce barriers that all small businesses — including those owned by disadvantaged groups such as veterans, women and those from rural communities —often face in accessing critical support.”
The Community Navigator Pilot Program used a “hub and spoke” model, with VtSBDC as the hub, and nine partner organizations as spokes.
Although the two-year pilot program has concluded, this network of community partners continues to collaborate to support Vermont’s small businesses and their owners throughout the state. Learn more about the Community Navigator Pilot Program, and how this two-year project has transformed the way our network partners work together.
The “spoke” partner organizations:
- Vermont Law and Graduate School
- Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) Financial Futures Program
- Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF)
- Center for Women and Enterprise (CWEVT)
- Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation (CVEDC) and Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC)
- Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA)
- Vermont Professionals of Color Network (VT POC)
- Main Street Alliance-Vermont (MSA-VT)
The well-balanced network of partner organizations recruited by VtSBDC worked together to address the identified gap areas of: financial, digital and legal literacy while increasing cultural knowledge, awareness and greater sensitivity through diversity, equity and inclusivity efforts across the technical assistance provider network of Vermont.
Read more about how CNPP supported Vermont’s small and very small businesses on the Inspiring Entrepreneurs blog https://www.vtsbdc.org/blog/inspiring-entrepreneurs/
or view the CNPP video here:
Funding [in part] through a Grant with the U.S. Small Business Administration