The Emerging Leaders program, managed by the Indiana SBA office, runs for seven months and targets entrepreneurs from historically challenged communities.
A division of the Indy Chamber is applying to become a U.S. Small Business Administration-affiliated microlender, a move aimed at boosting its available capital and expanding its territory in a wide-open frontier of finance.
More small businesses in Indiana are securing loans as owners learn to present their companies better and banks warm to small-business lending after years of hesitation.
Indiana has three certified, not-for-profit SBA microloan intermediaries, which not only make short-term microloans—as any lender can—but also use the SBA grants they receive to offer business coaching along with the financing.
Indiana businesses borrowed $424.7 million through U.S. Small Business Administration programs in 2012, an 18-percent decline from 2011, latest SBA statistics show.
The amount of money banks loaned through U.S. Small Business Administration programs shot up close to 30 percent in Indiana this year, a sign that the state’s small businesses—including Pat Wolfred’s CCA Inc.—have started coming back to life.