Chicago Community Ventures Blog

CCV Needs Your Support - Help Us win $5000 from May 19th - May 21st

Chicago Community Ventures Teams up with Good Search!

GoodSearch will donate $1 (up to $5,000 total) for every toolbar that is downloaded between May 19th at 12 noon and May 21st at 12 noon Eastern! To help our cause benefit from this contest, please download our toolbar now by following this link http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/chicago-community-ventures-ccv.

We have something new and exciting we'd like to share with you! It's the new Chicago Community Ventures - CCV toolbar - once added to IE or Firefox, each time you shop at more than 1,300 stores (from Amazon to Zazzle!) a percentage of your purchase will automatically be donated to Chicago Community Ventures - CCV - at no cost to you (and you may even save money as the toolbar provides coupons and deals as well!). The toolbar also has a search box and each time you search the Internet, about a penny is donated to Chicago Community Ventures - CCV.

And please pass this along to all of your friends. The two minutes it takes to add this toolbar to your browser can make a lifetime of difference!

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CCV Welcomes New AmeriCorps VISTA - Seth Harrop

CCV welcomes our newest AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer - Seth Harrop! Seth will be joining us as a Financial Analyst. We are excited for Seth to bring his expertise and knowledge to CCV's clients. Read on to learn more about Seth and what he'll be doing during his service year.

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I recently joined CCV as an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer. Throughout my college years at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, I worked in a community bank in rural Wisconsin where I first became interested in working with small businesses and helping them achieve their goals.

Recently, during law school at Marquette University I volunteered at the Milwaukee County Courthouse in the Family Law Pro Se Clinic. Working at that clinic—which helped low-income individuals who could not afford attorneys, navigate the legal process—I was exposed to the startling realities of chronic poverty. That experience led me to pursue additional volunteer activities, including work at a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, and ultimately to look into AmeriCorps*VISTA.

When I discovered the VISTA opportunity at CCV, I realized it would be a perfect fit for me. CCV’s mission of building businesses that build communities allows me to utilize my degrees in accounting and law toward the VISTA mission of eliminating poverty in the United States. Throughout my VISTA year here at CCV, I’ll be working with clients on financial analysis, budgeting, business plan creation, and forecasting. It is my sincere hope that I will bring a set of skills to my clients that will allow them to strengthen their businesses, grow their businesses and hopefully create additional jobs in Chicago’s communities.

In addition to my role as financial analyst at CCV, I will be working with the CCV marketing team to bring information about our clients to the CCV blog. In my dual roles as client counselor and blogger I will serve as the bridge between the clients and the marketing team.

I’m excited to be working with a great organization that works so hard to build Chicago’s communities by strengthening the businesses that support them. I look forward to the year ahead!

CCV Looking to Hire Social Media Intern

Social Media & Outreach Intern

Chicago Community Ventures is looking for an energetic and self-motivated individual who is eager to learn about economic development in a non-profit environment. We are currently looking to hire an intern to assist with our social media and outreach efforts.

Key responsibilities include:

• Researching and authoring three blog posts per week. Content should be relevant to small business owners and the economic development community
• Actively maintain CCV Twitter account, providing CCV followers with relevant news and information. Continue to proactively grow follower base
• Keep CCV Facebook page and LinkedIn page current and proactively expand fan and member base
• Research additional ways to expand CCV’s reach through social media and small-scale fundraising opportunities

This position has a flexible schedule with the opportunity to complete most responsibilities remotely. Intern is expected to come into CCV office once every two weeks for progress check in with Development & Communication Manager. Additional check in meetings may be scheduled via phone as needed.

The ideal candidate will possess the following:

• Strong writing and communication skills
• Interest in economic and small business development
• Knowledge of current social media networks and web-based blog services
• Ability to work independently
• Basic HTML knowledge preferred

Intern is expected to commit to the position for four months (or the length of a school semester) with the opportunity to extend beyond this time period upon completion of the four month agreement.

This is an unpaid position.

Interested candidates should send their resume and a brief cover letter to Lauren Foukes at lfoukes@chiventures.org. No phone calls please.

About CCV: We are a non-profit business development organization that offers counseling and financial services to small, under-resourced companies in three target markets: women- and minority-owned enterprises and businesses operating in low and moderate income areas throughout the region.

All of CCV's services are offered at little or no cost to our clients thanks to the generous contributions of our friends and partners.

AmeriCorps Week - Manjima's Experience

This is part of a series of posts supporting AmeriCorps Week.  The below post was written by current CCV staff member, Manjima Bose.

I joined the AmeriCorps*VISTA program after graduating from undergrad, not realizing how much being involved with the program was going to influence my professional career and personal interests. I spent my service year here, at CCV, as a Grant Writer. With experience in grant writing, and arts and humanities organizations, I had little experience with the small business world. Unknowingly, I had stumbled into an industry that would become a passion of mine, only later realizing the role small businesses played in my life, and the importance of those experiences.

AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers have played a tremendous role in CCV’s success. As a small nonprofit, the support our VISTA volunteers provide to staff is integral. From supporting staff working with clients on marketing efforts, financial analyses to formalizing and creating new program initiatives to assisting with CCV’s own marketing and fundraising efforts, VISTA volunteers have been involved in every aspect of CCV.

VISTA volunteers have:

• Directly helped CCV raise over $400,000 in program support
• Provided over 1700 hours in support of CCV’s services
• Created 5 course curriculums for clients, topics ranging from Marketing and Sales to Pricing
• Supported the implementation of our pilot Place-Based Community Initiative in Cottage Grove
• Helped reshape the structure of our loan program leading to higher success rates
• Provided need assessments, market analyses and financial analyses for over 50 clients
• Expanded CCV’s marketing efforts through social media by creating a blog which is viewed by over 500 people monthly and by creating a Facebook page and LinkedIn group for CCV which have helped CCV connect with over 140 individuals

CCV recognizes and greatly appreciates the hard work and dedication of the individuals that take part in AmeriCorps. The value they provide to nonprofits nationally is invaluable. Thank you for the continued support of our past and present VISTAs – we look forward to continuing to partner with these dedicated individuals to serve Chicago’s small businesses!

AmeriCorps Week - Lauren's Experience

This is part of a series of posts supporting AmeriCorps Week.  The below post was written by current AmeriCorps VISTA staff member, Lauren Foukes.

The VISTA experience for me has provided me with both professional and personal growth. I came from a background in corporate marketing where resources were in abundance (as was money).  Needless to say, transitioning to a small non-profit with limited funds was hard at first.  However, what I like about working here is the opportunity to be truly hands on.  If I want to create marketing collateral?  Better start designing.  Create a new volunteer initiative?  Sure, let us know how it would be structured.  Working in a small environment provides flexibility and the opportunity for fast turn around.  Worlds away from the bureaucracy of corporate life.

Easily the best part of working at CCV has been meeting entrepreneurs and learning about the small businesses they run.  I have met several incredible business owners like Faie African Art, Agriculture, Sensual Steps and Bronzeville Coffee & Tea who are working together to create a stronger business corridor in Bronzeville.  I've had the chance to work with social entrepreneurs like The Enterprising Kitchen that is developing the work force through job training.  Further I have seen the impact that businesses like Workforce Language Services can make to bridge the cultural and language gap in the workplace.  Each entrepreneur plays an important role in our economy - creating jobs, economic activity and thriving communities.  I believe firmly in the role of small business to create a stronger economy.

While professionally I have grown over the past nine months, I think the more meaningful part of my VISTA has come from the personal growth.  Something that a lot of people don't know is that VISTA is entirely focused on poverty alleviation and all VISTAs are compensated at the national poverty line (go ahead and look it up, it's not much).  Aside from being very cognizant of my budget, being compensated at this level has allowed me to really reflect on what poverty means in the United States.  Stirring questions like "How are we defining poverty?" and more importantly "What structures are we putting in place to eradicate it?" 

Poverty doesn't look the same here as it does in the developing world.  In many ways, poverty is "hidden" here at home and we need activists, like VISTAs, uncovering these hidden ills.  I had lived in Chicago for two years and felt like I "knew" the city fairly well.  I was wrong.  There were entire neighborhoods I had never heard about, let alone had a sense for what economic activity was going on there.  If anything, being a VISTA has given me a new lens and perspective in which I view the world around me and instilled a greater need to be a part of solutions that make this world better.

I encourage anyone who truly wants to make an impact on the community around them to explore the organizations that are a part of the AmeriCorps VISTA program.  The VISTA year has provided me with invaluable life lessons.