Online workshops set to 'start, grow, revive your business'

Havre Daily News staff

Two sets of eight-session online workshops start next week to help business owners or people who want to start a business succeed, with their primary target entrepreneurs in Indian Country.

Opportunity Link Community Coordinator Nick Dorr said funding for the the “Start, Grow, Revive Your Business” workshops, being facilited by Havre-based Opportunity Link and the multi-Western state nonprofit Rural Community Assistance Corp., came from U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency, and is targeting areas with few small businesses now in them.

He said a series starting next Tuesday is targeting Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation, and a series starting Thursday is targeting Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, although the workshops are open to anyone.

“The target is to get on-reservation businesses started,” Dorr said.

The workshops will start at 10 a.m. each day and each workshop will last 90 minutes and include time for questions from and assistance to the participants.

The series targeting Rocky Boy starts Tuesday with the following sessions every other Tuesday, March 30, April 23, April 27, May 11, May 25, June 8 and June 22.

The series targeting Fort Belknap starts Thursday with the following sessions every other Thursday, April 1, April 15, April 29, May 13, May 27, June 10 and June 25.

A flyer for the workshops says an iPad library is available to loan equipment to people without a computer or internet.

The flyer says the sessions will teach people techniques to

• Evaluate their startup or expansion idea;

• Pinpoint their customers’ needs;

• Describe their products or services;

• Identify partnerships needed for success;

• Create a startup or expansion budget;

• Fund the startup or expansion idea, and

• Take the idea to the next level.

Funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency is being used to put on the workshops.

People who want more information or want to sign up can contact Dorr at 262-0177 or via email at [email protected].