By Pauline Clark
Sault area businesses unable to access traditional funding sources for growth opportunities have been able to take advantage of the services of a community investment program for the past few years.
That program is the RAPIDS Community Investments Inc., not a funding source, but rather a group whose aim is to act as a facilitator to bring businesses seeking funding together with investors.
"We don't have money, but we look for it and try to match investors with local small businesses seeking funding," explains Lee-Anne Nicholson, special projects officer for RAPIDS.
That is in keeping with their mission, which is to assist businesses to grow through programs and services that focus on accessing capital, and that is what makes the company different from both the economic development corporation and the community development corporation.
RAPIDS is focused only on educating about funding and linking to funding.
"Many clients aren't investment-ready or educated enough about their growth plans and about funding," says Nicholson, whose job is to evaluate those clients and decide how to proceed.
This process usually takes about six months and can include assistance in business-plan creation as well as finding some funding options in the form of non-traditional private venture capital.
Although Nicholson says they occasionally get clients that are just starting up, 90 per cent of them are businesses that already exist and almost all are in areas of manufacturing.
In its fourth year of operation, RAPIDS is one of 22 five-year pilot projects started in 1997 by Industry Canada's (IC) Entrepreneurship and Small Business Office to improve access to financing for small- and medium-sized businesses, especially those outside of larger cities. While two-thirds of their funding has been through IC's Canada Community Investment Plan, RAPIDS will be required to generate their own operating capital by next year.
One of the main components of RAPIDS is their two information databases. One contains the various sources of financing available to clients and the other contains a list of clients and includes information on types of businesses seeking funds as well as their plans for development and the funds they require.
Nicholson says education in growth, investment and financing is an important component of RAPIDS and is done through conferences, seminars and workshops.
