Every local business is an asset from which new growth can emerge if we tend to the power of microenterprises, like micro-organisms in soil, to support new life. This is the essence of our mission at New Growth CDC.

Stacey and Larry Poe started Lucky Ducky Cleaning with a $5,000 loan from New Growth community development corporation. Less than two years later, the commercial cleaning company has contracts with 10 government office buildings and employs a team of nine workers.

Applications are open now for a free year of mentorship in Climate Smart farm conservation practices. Participants will receive 25 hours of one-one-one assistance from a team of experienced farmers who offer a broad spectrum of expertise.

The New Growth Women’s Business Center is pleased to offer an opportunity for six rural women entrepreneurs to join a peer-to-peer support group and work one-on-one with women’s leadership coach Dina Readinger.

Locally owned and rooted businesses will feature greatly in the revival of rural Missouri as a place where people and businesses want to be. That’s who the New Growth community development corporation is working to support with rural small business development and flexible micro-financing programs.

In one year the regional START HERE network has helped 14 new businesses start and launched a range of resources to help rural economies and communities grow. Its “5th Monday” luncheon in Warsaw brought partners together to explore this regional collaboration.

This year on Giving Tuesday November 30, 2021, we invite you to support the New Growth Women’s Business Center. The 15-county WBC is one of only five in the nation that focuses on rural entrepreneurs, men and women.

A major regional workforce study and next steps for funding west central Missouri action were the topic recently of the START HERE Business Acceleration Network’s bimonthly community partner meeting. View recording here.

Credit building program builds pipeline of bankable borrowers. Since October 2021, 26 participants in the New Growth community development corporation program have improved their credit scores 875 points, with a top entrepreneur achievement of 108 points.

START HERE network celebrates one of many businesses growing with team support COLE CAMP, MO – Crowds were waiting outside the newly opened CC’s Butcher Shop in downtown Cole Camp on July 1 around 3:00 p.m. to check out one of Benton County’s newest businesses

A lack of housing options could nip new rural opportunity in the bud. Can the west central Missouri region muster the private-public collaboration and innovation needed to ramp up housing supply? This question is the topic of a “5th Monday” regional networking luncheon 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Monday May 24.

Two new Benton county businesses are the latest to get the startup boost they need from a new nonprofit financing resource in west central Missouri: The START HERE Revolving Loan Fund. Both are prime examples of what the START HERE Revolving Loan Fund is designed to do: Support rural businesses that are ready to get going and growing but are too new, too small, or too credit-challenged for traditional bank loans.