Funds available for business expansion, start-ups

Bear Paw Development Corporation is encouraging existing business owners and other entrepreneurs who may be in need of financing for a business start-up or expansion opportunity to contact their office. As the organization celebrates its 45th year as a federally-recognized Economic Development District, it also celebrates 26 years of managing one of Montana’s largest revolving loan funds specifically targeted to help private businesses expand and grow.

“Bear Paw Development has had great success in the past at financing businesses throughout our five-county area of northern Montana, but we really believe that the best is yet to come in terms of helping our region’s small business community to grow and prosper,” said Paul Tuss, Executive Director. “Summer is a time when many small business owners think of expanding their operation and when new entrepreneurs consider finally taking that important step toward making their dream become a reality. Bear Paw Development currently has funds available to lend to area businesses, and we are looking to invest these funds in projects that will help our communities grow, expand our tax base, create jobs and assist entrepreneurs realize their dream of business success.”

Since 1988, Bear Paw Development has approved more than 335 loans to businesses in northern Montana. This lending represents approximately $24.2 million that has gone directly into helping businesses succeed and has also helped to create or retain 1,255 jobs.

To make it even easier and more affordable to finance a business start-up or expansion, Bear Paw Development is reducing its loan origination fee for the summer by 26%, which represents the number of years the organization has been helping businesses with their financing needs. “To really help kick-start the financing needs of our entrepreneurial community, we thought the best way to do that was to make getting a loan more affordable from the very beginning by reducing our origination fee by 26% for the summer,” Tuss said. “We want to be as helpful as we can in assisting small businesses thrive.”

In addition to small business financing, Bear Paw Development also provides counseling and technical assistance for developing business plans, cash flow projections and the other details that are necessary to become successful. “In short, we really are the area’s one-stop shop for anyone who may have a great idea but just doesn’t know how to take the next step in planning for the business success they want to achieve,” Tuss noted. Technical assistance and business counseling services are provided through Bear Paw’s Small Business Development Center and Food and Agriculture Development Cen-ter, which are both part of statewide networks designed to assist small business entrepreneurs and value-added agricultural clients with their projects.

Bear Paw Development is a nonprofit community and economic development organization that works in Liberty, Hill, Blaine, Chouteau and Phillips counties and on the Rocky Boy’s and Fort Belknap Indian Reservations. To contact Bear Paw Development about this opportunity, call 265-9226, or visit their website at http://www.bearpaw.org.