Minority support group teams up

After running Spokane’s minority-business advocacy group for eight years largely on his own, Ben Cabildo has decided to join forces with a bigger partner.

Cabildo, the executive director of AHANA, said the group will merge with Community Minded Enterprises, a Spokane-based agency. AHANA – which stands for African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American – already moved its office into the building housing Community Minded Enterprises, the renovated Saranac at 25 W. Main St.

AHANA helps small and minority-owned businesses find investors, locate partners or sharpen a business plan. Cabildo said the time had come for him to align AHANA with a larger group to give him more time to focus on programs and make it more effective.

AHANA has operated with just two staff workers. The formal merger, expected in mid-January, will make AHANA an independent program inside Community Minded Enterprises, which has a staff of 35.

“We have a big mission and we need more resources and a larger infrastructure to accomplish that (AHANA) mission,” Cabildo said.

The groups have discussed the merger for six months. One reason Cabildo was attracted was the commitment Community Minded Enterprises has to helping small and minority businesses gain traction in Spokane, where low-income families have struggled to find higher-paying jobs, he said.

Community Minded Enterprises was originally known as the Health Improvement Partnership. Renamed three years ago, it creates and supports efforts to improve neighborhoods, encourage small businesses and broaden community social services.

CME Executive Director Dan Baumgarten said two areas where his group can help AHANA are communications and grant writing.

CME now runs Cable Channel 14, and AHANA will use that channel to spread information to the community about programs and to create digital-media skills-training for low-income teens, Cabildo said.

“We also have a strong grant-writing program,” added Baumgarten, “and that’s not been something Ben has been able to do on his own.”

One example of AHANA’s impact has been Spokane-based Warrior Electric, a company started in 2004 by Grinelle “Buzz” Desjarlais. The Native American-owned electrical contracting firm recently won a Rising Star award from the University of Washington for its fast growth over the past four years.

While AHANA didn’t provide direct counseling to Desjarlais, Cabildo helped him find two Seattle resources that proved critical in gaining enough financing to grow and prosper. Warrior Electric employs 13 people.

“One of Ben’s main assets is he knows every dog on every porch. He knows everyone in this town and across the state,” Desjarlais said.

Baumgarten noted that Cabildo will continue as AHANA’s director. “It’s important to say that we are not taking over AHANA. It will remain a separate program. And we don’t want its constituents to think we have it all figured out now,” he added.

To get feedback on AHANA and its mission, the two groups will sponsor a public forum on Jan. 24 on the topic of minority business development. That meeting, at the Spokane Civic Theater, will be videotaped and played later on Community Minded TV.

The forum, said Baumgarten, is to ask business owners and others to brainstorm more ways to help AHANA grow and support minority economic development.