Chamber Hiring Two New Positions Through Grant Servicing Multi County Region
The Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce and its affiliated entity, West Central 2025, are seeking two individuals to help expand their reach throughout West Central Indiana as part of a two-year federal grant program through the Small Business Administration’s Community Navigator Pilot Program.
Announced last week, the West Central Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC), hosted at Indiana State University’s Scott College of Business, was recently selected to receive the $1 million grant to support the creation of the Intentional Outreach Network (ION) to strengthen outreach services to underserved businesses in a seven-county service area in order to ensure that SBA resources are accessible to entrepreneurs.
The Black Business Alliance Coordinator will be responsible for building a Black Business Alliance under the Chamber umbrella to serve small black-owned businesses throughout a seven-county region in West Central Indiana. The newly formed Alliance will seek to empower, guide, promote, enhance, connect and grow black business leaders and entrepreneurs throughout the area.
The Rural Outreach Coordinator will help West Central 2025, an initiative supported by the Greater Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce Foundation, in creating an outreach program that encourages small business development and entrepreneurship in rural communities throughout a seven-county region in West Central Indiana.
Complete position descriptions, including details on how to apply are available at the Chamber’s website, terrehautechamber.com.
Through the newly established ION Network, the grant funding will allow for the hiring of business advisors and outreach representatives to support businesses impacted by COVID-19 and underserved areas including rural, LBGTQIA+, veteran and Black-owned businesses. It will also enable West Central Indiana SBDC and its partners to bring additional current COVID-19 and basic business resources to these businesses.
“We saw with the pandemic that there were business owners who did not know about the programs and funding available to them,” said Program Director Courtney Richey-Chipol. “Funding from this grant will allow us to increase our capacity to hire additional people to reach out and provide assistance to businesses in underserved markets. We are grateful to the SBA for this grant because this will help ensure that all businesses have access to resources available to them.”
ION includes five key agencies: WestCentral2025, Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, Pride Center of Terre Haute, Wabash Valley Base Community Council, and Launch Terre Haute, Inc.
