Wednesday, March 3,
2010
Governor Participates in
Lansing
Roundtable on Entrepreneurship
The governor today participated in a roundtable on
entrepreneurship at Lansing Community
College. Joining the governor were small
business owners and representatives from the Michigan Small Business and
Technology
Development Centers (MI-SBTDC) and the Michigan Credit
Union League (MCUL). This was the fourth in a series of entrepreneurship events
around that state that the governor has participated in
recently.
In her 2010 State of the State address, the governor
announced several small business financing and entrepreneurship initiatives to
help grow Michigan’s economy and create new jobs.
One is the Michigan Small Business Financing Alliance, a partnership between the
Granholm administration and the MCUL. More than 30 credit unions have
pledged at least $43 million for eligible small business loans. The MCUL
is working on coordinating the credit unions with the 12
MI-SBTDCs.
Another initiative is expanding the state’s offering of
the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s FastTrac® NewVenture™ program in which
entrepreneurs and displaced workers learn how to successfully launch and grow a
small business. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is helping
with funding to make the NewVenture program available to all 12 MI-SBTDCs and
1,000 prospective entrepreneurs.
Key messages:
- The Granholm
administration is helping to grow small and medium-sized businesses that are
the sources of innovation and job creation in Michigan.
- Small businesses
have created roughly 65 percent of all new jobs over the past
decade-and-a-half.
- Michigan is in
the top third of states based on friendliness to entrepreneurial and
knowledge-based businesses, as well as in the top third for business tax
climate.