Community Navigator Program
The Wyoming Community
Navigator Program
The program mobilized and leveraged the Wyoming entrepreneurial support network to reduce barriers for all small businesses, including those owned by groups such as veterans, women, and those from rural communities and communities of color often face in accessing capital and technical assistance.
The Wyoming Community Navigator Program used a hub and spoke model to pursue its goals, where the Wyoming Small Business Development Center acted as the central hub, coordinating efforts of the spokes, to target outreach and services to business communities in need throughout the state.
Through their collective efforts, the hub and spokes provided training, mentorship, access to capital, and access to other resources to help business owners build resiliency, and ultimately be the driving force behind Wyoming’s economic recovery.
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The Community Navigator Program
The Wyoming Community Navigator Hub
The Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network directly assisted traditionally underserved clients to prepare financial statements and loan applications to obtain commercial and SBA loan products to increase access to capital, as well as provided technical assistance, business advising, and training on various business topics.
The Wyoming Community Navigator Spokes
Wyoming Library to Business (WL2B)
Wyoming Library to Business expanded its network of business stations and portable video production studios to public libraries, providing technology and support for library to business outreach in any of the 23 county public library systems.
The Local Crowd
The Local Crowd provided community-based access to a crowdfunding platform and provided training for businesses to successfully raise funds on the online platform through ongoing marketing strategy development and deployment.
University of Wyoming Extension
UW Extension developed a virtual Rural Business Innovation Resource Center to provide rural business owners education, peer-to-peer business owner networking, access to their educators and experts, and referral information to the Spokes to access assistance with capital formation and to receive technical assistance.
Wind River Development Fund
The Wind River Development Fund (WRDF) provided direct outreach and financial opportunities to stimulate economic development on the Wind River Indian Reservation and enhanced the accessibility and quality of capital products to assist local small businesses who would otherwise lack access to capital.
Wyoming Smart Capital Network
The Wyoming Smart Capital Network (WSCN) contributed its credit support products and relationships with commercial lenders to increase access to capital for traditionally underserved small businesses.
Wyoming Women’s Business Center
The Wyoming Women’s Business Center (WWBC) performed outreach and financial education to woman- and minority-owned businesses to provide access to their microloan program to increase access to capital. The WWBC also provided marketing education and direct assistance to help clients undertake multimedia projects and subscribe to a template-driven email platform.
