Reblog: Economic Recovery Spotlight: Brattleboro (Vt.) Development Credit Corporation

Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC)’s recovery and resilience work falls into three major areas—business resilience, workforce and welcoming, and community development.

Business resilience

Some of our local businesses accessed federal and state relief, pivoted, and even grew. Some still feel the effects of the pandemic and ongoing disruptions. Others floundered or failed due to the new reality of lockdown, or because their foundations were weak. We always knew a lack of financial literacy and basic business skills created risk. This was driven home during the pandemic.

BDCC is building business resilience with increased technical assistance delivered by an expanded business services team. We are doubling down on new entrepreneurial ecosystem development and launched a new business plan competition. We’ve joined the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) Vermont cohort, fostering tech entrepreneurship, and partnered with two new coworking and innovation spaces in Brattleboro to provide programming.

We are educating ourselves to better serve BIPOC, women, veterans, and other marginalized entrepreneurs, and conducting intentional systems change within our organization.

We have an expanded lending portfolio for businesses at all stages—from startups to growth to owner succession. This includes microlending as low as $750, and four distinct lending products by year’s end. BDCC just received an EDA Build to Scale award to establish a seed fund—a major step towards our vision of ensuring local businesses can access capital.

Workforce and welcoming

From 2010 to 2021 our regional workforce dropped 17 percent due to a silver tsunami. BDCC runs workforce development partnerships and programs, doubling down in key areas. First, our Welcoming Communities initiative is focused on welcoming newcomers, whether they hail from Brooklyn or Burundi. We’ll be building our rural immigration support system over the next three years, as part one of eight Boston Fed Working Communities Challenge teams in Vermont.

BDCC took the lead on bringing refugee resettlement partners to our region, and we will welcome refugees later this fall. Through our new Welcoming Workplaces trainings and toolkit, we’ll help employers attract and retain a future Vermont workforce that will be far more diverse.

Talent retention is also key. We connect students to future opportunities here in the region through our Pipelines and Pathways Program (P3) which won an IEDC Excellence in Economic Development Gold Award this year! Our Southern Vermont Young Professionals program helps young adults advance their careers and deepen their connections in the region.

Community programs

To build resilience, we must address the challenges and opportunities before us. We need talent and they need housing! BDCC is working to direct state and regional investment towards infrastructure that will support growing businesses, housing, and communities.

Our Community Facilities Technical Assistance program helps local projects advance and access additional resources such as USDA’s Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant Program. BDCC’s Southern Vermont Economy Project helps towns and nonprofits increase the skills and capacity to execute local projects. This is particularly important with ARPA funds creating once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.