Achieve Your Business Goals
Looking for a competitive advantage? Need to focus and prioritize? Leverage Green County Development Corporation’s (GCDC) dedicated business experts for impartial guidance. We’ll help you make informed decisions. Because when you craft your plan for success, you gain the confidence to realize your goals. Our local Small Business Development Center consultants Kristi Smith and Jason Schleip help entrepreneurs succeed at any stage. They offer no-cost, confidential consulting and business education for Green County businesses.
Smith and Schleip are veteran business owners who have created, run and sold businesses. They know how exciting, overwhelming, stressful and empowering it is to launch and grow a business. Contact our business counselors at SWWISBDC@lists.wisconsin.edu. We can assure you they are the best business coaches in the state!
Funds Available
Or maybe you are a manufacturer and need funds to expand? GCDC’s Growth Opportunity Fund loans can provide up to $100,000 as a bridge between the amount the borrower can obtain in the private market and what is needed to start or sustain a business. As businesses pay back their loans with interest, the fund will rebuild itself, constantly turning over to provide additional loans to other businesses. The Growth Opportunity Fund can be used for businesses such as: advanced manufacturing, agriculture or food processing, information systems or software, medical devices, biosciences and energy. There is no job creation requirement. Interest rates average around 3%. Payments can be deferred for six months.
Classes for Childcare Businesses
At GCDC, we’re pulling out all the stops to help childcare businesses because we know childcare is the backbone of our workforce in Green County. We’ve teamed up with local partners like United Way of Green County, as well as regional and statewide partners to ensure our childcare businesses have what they need to succeed.
We had a wildly successful Childcare Recognition Kickoff event last week to highlight and celebrate the childcare industry. As part of our on-going programming, we are offering a number of classes free to Green County childcare providers. (Providers from other counties can sign up for our waiting list and join if slots are available.)
CPR/First Aid will be offered twice so providers can choose one date, Saturday, October 9 or Saturday, November 20. This 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in-person class will be held at the Justice Center in Monroe and includes: Basic Life Support CPR covering adult, child and infant CPR; how to use an Automated External Defibrillator (AED); how to alleviate choking; teamwork; and situational awareness. It also includes First Aid covering basic first aid, medical, injuries, and environmental emergencies. The cost of the class is $87 per participant, but free for Green County childcare providers.
Learning Environments and Curriculum Through the Lens of Developmentally Appropriate Practice is a virtual class scheduled for Wednesday, October 13 from 6-9 p.m. This training provides a deep dive into best practices for developmentally appropriate environments for childcare businesses. Participants will gain a greater understanding of the needs of a quality learning environment and the tools to create one. The cost is $30 per participant, and free for Green County childcare providers.
Safety Saturday will be held virtually on Saturday, October 30 from 8:30 a.m. to noon. All childcare professionals working with children under the age of 5 are required to take these Safety Saturday classes which include: Abusive Head Trauma Prevention; Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Prevention (SIDS); and Mandated Reporter Training. The cost is $50 per participant and free for Green County childcare providers.
Professionalism is an in-person training on Wednesday, November 10 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. held at the Justice Center in Monroe. In this training, we will honor the skills it takes to do the work of an early childhood educator and discuss who we are as professionals. We will also deep dive into developmentally appropriate practices and what that looks like for each professional. The cost is $30 per participant, and free for Green County childcare providers.
Watch for MORE Classes in 2022
Childcare business programming will continue into 2022 with Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards (WMELS), a virtual class held Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6-8:30 p.m. starting January 11. Pyramid Model training will be held in person at the Justice Center in Monroe every other Wednesday evening starting January 12.
Register Now!
To sign up for any of these childcare business trainings, email training@4-c.org or call (608) 216-7018. Green County childcare providers who sign up for a class but do not finish a class will not be allowed to benefit from free classes or any other Childcare Accelerator funding in the future. If you sign up for a class, please plan to finish.
For more information about any of the opportunities for businesses in Green County, contact the GCDC office at (608) 328-9452 or email gcdc@tds.net.
Let’s start and grow more Green County businesses!
— Cara Carper is executive director at Green County Development Corporation. She can be reached at cara.gcdc@tds.net.
