The counselors at small business centers throughout North Carolina play a pivotal role in helping business owners bring their ideas to life and keep their doors open. At Carolina Community Impact, we’re consistently strengthening our relationships with small business advocates and organizations such as the Nash Community College Small Business Center and its director, Tierra Norwood.
Tierra Norwood is the Nash Community College Small Business Center’s (NCCSBC) third director in its 30-year history. She dedicates herself to maintaining the meaningful reputation and impact of the NCCSBC by offering the center’s more traditional services, such as one-on-one counseling or group training on topics such as business plan development, marketing, and basic bookkeeping. However, Norwood is also very eager to help her center’s clients conquer a crucial part of growing their business: gaining access to capital.
“We get a lot of people who come to us with ideas, and we like to see how seriously they are invested in their ideas to turn them into actual businesses. After they’ve taken steps to invest their time and effort into their ideas, we want to get them to seek non-traditional funds, which is what led to becoming a trustee with Kiva,” Norwood says.
Carolina Community Impact launched the Central Carolina Kiva Hub this September. Kiva’s unique approach to small business lending uses the proven crowd-funding concept. People contribute money to a specific cause or idea to help someone else reach their financial goal and bring their vision to fruition. Working alongside Norwood and the NCCSBC, Carolina Community Impact hopes to disburse over $400,000 in small business loans over the next two years.
“Joe Battle (CCI team member) reached out to NCCSBC and connected us because of our organizations’ mutual interests and connection to Kiva,” Norwood mentions. “We replaced reaching out to Kiva with working with CCI directly, and it has been a great fit.” So far, the NCCSBC has partnered with Carolina Community Impact to endorse nine borrowers, of which six applicants received funding for a total of $31,000.
Norwood regularly meets with business owners to offer business guidance, and she knows how important it is for them to get capital for their ideas. As a Kiva trustee, she endorses a borrower’s loan applications. Norwood looks for the 5 C’s of credit before she endorses a Kiva loan application, in much the same way a lender would. However, she pays the most attention to a business owner’s character.
“Endorsing a loan application is a serious business,” Norwood states. “I have to trust and have faith in you as a business owner and see your seriousness. You need to have a proven track record of finishing the programs you enroll in here at our SBC. And we have to have a relationship. If you’re not enrolling in one of our programs, you have to be a consistent and committed client in our counseling sessions.”
NCCSBC requires anyone seeking non-traditional funding, like Kiva, to complete at least one of the three programs the center offers. They currently provide a Launch Rocky Mount program, similar to Katie Gailes and Launch Wake County, and an entrepreneurship Bootcamp and an IceHouse Mindset program.
As the newest director of the NCCSBC, Norwood has lots of new ideas and community connections that she wants to offer the clients that work with the center. An entrepreneur herself, she knows that working with energetic and resourceful business advocates is a key in helping business owners thrive, especially when they’re very new to entrepreneurship. “Maybe you’ve seen other people run businesses, but you’ve never done it yourself,” she says. “When you don’t know what it takes to start and grow a business, you need a counselor to walk you through the process. That’s where the Nash Community College Small Business Center comes in.”