Page 8 — Terrace Progress Edition 1997, February 26, 1997

THE FIVE people at the Community Futures Develo

pment Corporation of 16-37 are,

fram left to right, business analyst Dave Andrews, business analyst Ben Foote and general manager Joe Whitney, In the front are, on the left community development officer Mary Anne Skit! and administrative assistant Jocelyn Galloway.

Local control does work

JOE WHITNEY turns away, puiiches some num- bers on his desktop calculator and resumes the conversation,

“Thal’s $26 million in direct loans and what we've been able to leverage,” says the general manager of Community Futures Development Corporation of 16-37,

Divide that by the nearly nine years the corpora- tion has been in business, and it works out to a pretty impressive annual influx of investment money to lhe northwest.

And that’s Whitney’s point — ibe corporation is a locally-coutrolled agency providing help and money to either maintain or create businesses and jobs.

“We're director-driven,’? adds Whitney of the corporation’s 13-member board which has repre- sentatives from Kemano up Hwy37 North and from Kiucolith to Moricetown.

Over the nearly nine years the corporation has helped maintain, create or expand 640 businesses and 1885 full and part lime jobs.

The corporation got its start by focussing on smaller businesses but can tow take on farger clients and bas added community economic devel- opnicnt to its mandate.

While it has the authority to.lend up to $75,000 of its own money, the corporation also helps businesses find other sources of public, bank or private financing, It has so far lent $3.8 million of its own money and has leveraged an additional $22.2 million across the northwest.

“We see ourselves as counsellors who lend; not

lenders who counsel,” said Whitney. That’s a short way of saying the corporation works its clients through first a business plan to determine of their idea is economically and financially sound,

“We act like a broker to put it all together,’ says Whitney. ‘‘And if that means obtaining fund- ing from the devil, we might take him on.’’

The corporation got its start through a $175,000 capital loan grant from the federal goverment. It can now draw up to $1.55 million but has so far taken only $1.375 million.

Interest on loan repayments over the years have added to the corporation’s available investment pool, At the moment it has a little over $2.5 mil- lion out to businesses.

Whitney’s happy that the corporation has only written off $61,000 in loan losses over the years.

He credits some of that to the business planning and investigation that gocs on prior to loans being authorized. ‘‘A small business failure can hurt other smal! businesses and we want to avoid that,’ he says.

There are 32 community future development cor- porations in B.C. and 72 across the four westem provinces. They were started in areas of high to moderate unemployment.

The corporation © still

teceives an annual

$360,000 operating grant from its federal sponsor, the Western Economic Diversification agency.

Whitney forecasts an increasing role for the de- velopment corporations in areas such as training as ‘the federal government tums more control and authority over to local organizations.

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