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Site descriptions with the specific responsibilities for the student interns will be added as we receive them from the sites. Additional sites may be added.
Student interns will work with social enterprise organizations that promote double- or triple-bottom-line strategies (for-profit or not-for-profit organizations that attend to a financial, social and/or environmental bottom line). Successful candidates will use their business skills to promote economic development initiatives, assist with feasibility or business planning for a new social enterprise, or guide future growth of an ongoing initiative through capacity building and other strategic activities.
ACCION CHICAGO is an alternative lending organization dedicated to providing credit and other business services to small business owners who do not have access to traditional sources of financing. By encouraging the economic self-reliance of microentrepreneurs throughout the Chicagoland area, ACCION Chicago strives to help businesses and communities grow. Many of the ACCION clients do not have access to traditional bank loans. The small size of their loan request and limited credit history regularly make them ineligible for conventional financing and unable to obtain the credit they need to grow their businesses. ACCION Chicago provides the credit and training necessary to help small business owners increase their incomes, create new jobs, and strengthen their communities.
2011 Interns: Chicago: Yessenia Diaz De Leon '12 and Mary McKenna '12
The mission of ACCION TEXAS, INC. is to provide credit and service to small businesses that do not have access to loans from commercial sources, and to provide leadership and service to the micro-lending field on a national level. Established in 1994 in San Antonio, ACCION helps entrepreneurs strengthen their businesses, stabilize and increase their incomes, create employment, and contribute to the economic revitalization of their communities.
ACCION Texas Inc. provides individual business loans from $500 to $50,000 for startups and up to $250,000 for established businesses. All loan funds repaid to ACCION are reinvested in the community. Additionally, ACCION Texas Inc. is a SBA 504 Certified Development Company. The 504 program, available only in Texas, provides healthy growing businesses with affordable long-term, fixed-rate financing for major fixed assets, such as land and buildings. ACCION works with the SBA and Private-Sector lenders to provide commercial real estate financing up to $4 million, to small businesses under the SBA 504 Program.
ACCION USA was established in 1991 as the domestic arm of ACCION International, a global microfinance organization with the mission of providing people with the financial tools needed to work their way out of poverty. Based on the success of the Brooklyn-based pilot program and the vast need for microfinance services in the United States, ACCION established direct lending offices in other major U.S. metropolitan areas. In 2000, ACCION USA was formed, launching programs in Georgia, New England and Florida over the next three years. In 2008, ACCION USA combined operations with licensee ACCION New York and began to serve New York- and New Jersey-based small businesses.
Today, ACCION USA's footprint is nationwide. With our online lending platform and licensees serving the Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Chicago, and San Diego markets, entrepreneurs coast-to-coast have access to microloan services. In total, ACCION USA and our affiliates provide 75 percent of microloan services in the United States.
COLORADO ENTERPRISE FUND CEF) is a non-profit community development financial institution founded in 1976 to help small businesses. Located in Denver, CEF provides small business loans up to $250,000 to entrepreneurs who are unable to obtain financing from traditional sources. Colorado Enterprise Fund provides small business loans and technical assistance to entrepreneurs who are unable to obtain financing from traditional sources.
Clients have access to management consulting and business training from the experienced staff. The student offers administrative support, assists in the loan process, and takes on independent, specialized projects.
No student was placed here in 2011, but the site will be offered for the summer of 2012.
The CROSSROADS RURAL ENTREPRENEURIAL INSTITUTE located in Galax, VA, opened in July 2005 to help improve the lives of people in southwest Virginia and beyond, by providing an innovative educational and economic development engine that will contribute to the revitalization of the region's economy while offering a brighter future for its citizens. The specific responsibilities of the intern are being determined.
2011 Interns: Christine Hamma '12 and Sarah McCroy '12
HANDCRAFTING JUSTICE, INC. Fair Trade not-for-profit, sponsored by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. We work with cooperation of women struggling for economic justice and independence in the developing world. HCJ markets goods made by women in Asia, Africa and South America and assist them in their efforts to create employment for themselves in order to provide for their families and better their lives. The student intern will be involved in areas such as sales events, web development, public relations, research, marketing and business administration.
2011 Interns: Helen Luppi ’13 and Beth Wloszek ‘13
The NETWORK FOR BETTER FUTURES is reducing the economic and social costs of high-risk adults, primarily African American men, with histories of incarceration, substance abuse, mental illness, chronic unemployment, and homelessness. This ambitious endeavor was established by a team of Minnesota’s leading healthcare, housing, workforce, community corrections, and human service practitioners. By setting high expectations and providing direct access to the resources needed to meet these expectations (housing, behavioral health and primary health care, short term employment, and community reengagement), participants in The NetWork are offered the opportunity to become contributing, productive, and positive members of society. An intern is needed to work with Better Futures Enterprises (BFE), which is a business unit within The NetWork designed to provide short term work for the organization’s high risk participants and, in the near future, generate profits for reinvestment in their mission.
2011 Intern: Christopher Hammit ‘11
WESST is a statewide small business development and training organization committed to growing New Mexico’s economy by cultivating entrepreneurship. Founded 1988 as a 501(c)3 non profit, WESST has nurtured the entrepreneurial dreams of thousands of New Mexicans by providing training, technical assistance and access to capital.
In 1994, WESST expanded from its single location in Albuquerque to its current statewide structure. Today, our small business development and training network includes Enterprise Centers in Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Roswell, and Farmington, New Mexico. Each of WESST’s six Enterprise Centers are funded in part by the SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership through its Women’s Business Center program.
2011 Intern: Gabrielle Rex ‘12
