‘Roadmaps’ help small businesses thrive

In most communities, small businesses are the biggest employers and a wellspring of leadership in civic and governmental institutions.

But opening and running a business is hard work, especially challenging in some of our state’s rural communities. Toss in a frequently confusing and complicated mix of state and local regulatory requirements, and the startup story gets tougher.

The state Department of Commerce works in many ways to help businesses start and expand. We also understand that a vigorous environment for business growth is based in healthy and vibrant communities. Economic development and community development are two sides of the same coin.

I joined Spokane Mayor David Condon and Spokane Valley Mayor Rod Higgins recently in launching a collaborative effort that makes it easier for prospective restaurateurs to open their doors in the Inland Northwest. We partnered with the cities, local agencies and businesses to create online guides that organize and simplify the state and local regulatory requirements new restaurants face. It’s based on the innovative approach and groundbreaking tools and techniques we developed with Seattle and local agency and business partners there.

We call this business-oriented approach Washington Regulatory Roadmaps, where we walk in the shoes of the business owner, then compile relevant information in one online location and provide tools to help businesses navigate the processes more smoothly.

The restaurant roadmap helps prospective restaurateurs avoid selecting an unworkable location, or a location that will require unanticipated costs for items like sprinkler systems. It identifies and helps correct conflicting or confusing interactions among the many state, county and city government agencies. It lays out the order, time frames and triggers for additional levels of regulatory requirements. This saves time and money.

We’ve recently taken the approach to the manufacturing sector with a pilot project in Snohomish County, where we’re working with five cities and their business communities to develop a facility-siting roadmap that will help avoid costly delays. We hope to be able to provide the manufacturing template to other communities as well.

Regulatory predictability is just one part of what it takes for businesses – and communities – to prosper. At Commerce, we work with local partners, such as SNAP, to help build communities that can attract and keep local businesses. We work with economic development partners, like Greater Spokane Incorporated, to help attract new businesses, new entrepreneurs and new jobs to communities across the state.

For example, think about access to capital. Commerce, in partnership with Community Sourced Capital, recently created the crowdsourcing Fund Local to help businesses get up to $50,000 in loans, interest-free. Linc Foods in Spokane raised more than $14,000 from area supporters to expand into malting grain for craft beer, and 23 small businesses have received more than half a million dollars in loans from supporters in other communities.

Our StartUp Washington is designed to keep economic and intellectual wealth in communities throughout Washington, and provides a clearinghouse for all the information and resources entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses need to achieve success.

StartUp Spokane, an initiative of Greater Spokane Incorporated, Avista and other partners, follows a similar model as a “hub of all things entrepreneurship in the Inland Northwest.” And just recently, StartUp Whitman and StartUp Asotin began providing entrepreneurship support and assistance in those rural counties.

Businesses thrive on a foundation of healthy communities.

At Commerce, we help communities maintain safe and affordable housing, provide indirect and direct assistance to families in need and give individuals and businesses a hand when disaster strikes. Our grants and loans for vital water and sewer infrastructure, community facilities and energy efficiency improvements, and weatherization services for low-income homes make communities safer, more livable and more attractive to businesses for job creation.

Economic development and community development really are two sides of the same coin. Commerce is the one place in all of state government that touches every aspect of both: building and strengthening communities and growing the economy.

Brian Bonlender is the director of the Washington Department of Commerce.