The South Okanagan-Similkameen’s economic development agency welcomes Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s late-January declaration of 2011 as Year of the Entrepreneur and says this region is piloting one of the country’s leading new programs providing business support for local entrepreneurs.
Community Futures Okanagan Similkameen (CFOS) is spearheading the ambitious new ‘Economic Gardening’ initiative which makes high-level business-development and market-research tools available to innovative small businesses in the area, helping them to grow their sales and hire more employees.
CFOS General Manager Mary Ellen Heidt says everyone involved with the Economic Gardening program welcomes the national spotlight cast on entrepreneurs by the Prime Minister’s declaration of the special year. Harper called entrepreneurs the backbone of the economy, noting that they create jobs and drive economic growth in communities across Canada.
“Entrepreneurs are particularly important in the economy of rural areas like the South Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys,” Heidt says. “By driving the rural economy and creating jobs, entrepreneurs are key in helping people remain in their home areas and maintain the vitality of those local communities.”
She notes that for the past 27 years Community Futures has been providing important business support services to thousands of entrepreneurs in communities across the region, including Summerland, Naramata, Penticton, Kaleden, Okanagan Falls, Oliver, Osoyoos, Cawston, Keremeos, Hedley and Princeton. There are 4,500 businesses in the CFOS region.
“We are excited to be partnering with Chambers of Commerce, local governments and others in our region as we pilot Economic Gardening through 2011,” Heidt says. “Rather than focusing on attracting businesses to the region from outside, Economic Gardening is using advanced market-research data and market-development tools to help entrepreneurs grow the businesses that they have already launched in our communities.” This CFOS initiative is Canada’s first formal Economic Gardening program. The pilot phase runs from late-2010 to March 2012 and is supported by $183,000 in funding.
Heidt invites entrepreneurs interested in Economic Gardening to contact CFOS Business Analyst Charles Cornell at 250-493-2566 (ext 213) or charles@cfokanagan.com.
Community Futures Okanagan Similkameen offers a range of business support programs including loans, self-employment training, assistance for young entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with disabilities, local videoconferencing facilities, and co-ordination of a number of community economic development projects. In 2009-10 Community Futures approved more than $2.1 million in business loans in the region – and since it was created in 1984, CFOS has loaned more than $24.6 million to small businesses in communities throughout the South Okanagan Similkameen.