This is the fifth in a series of 12 PBN articles focusing on the backgrounds, challenges and successes of some of the area’s most influential and interesting business women. The series began Sept. 12.
Denise Barge has never owned a business, and openly admits that she probably never will. But Barge, a former banking executive who now heads two key minority financing nonprofits, has a good idea of what a successful business looks like.
And, if you meet her groups’ goals, she wants that successful business to be yours.
Barge serves as executive director of both the Minority Investment Development Corporation and the Rhode Island Coalition for Minority Investment – two organizations that work to help minority and female entrepreneurs who are unable to obtain more traditional forms of financing.
People who come to the private, nonprofit community development organizations generally have been turned away by banks and other financial institutions. People can be refused for several reasons, Barge said, but often it’s because the potential lender lacks either an appropriate credit score or the collateral required for a traditional bank loan.
“There’s a certain hurdle for you to meet when it comes to qualifying,” Barge said. “If you don’t fit into the square hole there, you’re … declined. Then you have to look for what we call alternative bank sources.”
And that’s where MIDC and RICMI come in.
If the prospective borrower meets the qualifications – the organization believes the entrepreneur can repay the loan, and the service or product to be offered supports an ultimate goal of community development – the organizations will generally grant the loan.
RICMI administers the U.S. Small Business Administration’s micro-loan program and typically provides financing in the $2,000 to $35,000 range. MIDC focuses on larger loans, Barge said, providing financing between $35,000 and $250,000.
Barge, who has served as executive director of MIDC and RICMI since 1994, has an idea of what it’s like for people to be turned away at a bank – she started her career in that world.
In the latter part of her banking career, Barge was involved in community development efforts. She served on community boards and worked on developing products that would be a good fit for the communities she worked in – generally inner-city areas where potential borrowers might have had previous negative experiences with bank financing. And she learned that many of the budding entrepreneurs she encountered not only lacked the proper financing to get their businesses off the ground, but also the proper knowledge to sustain their investment.
“Through the bank that was I with, I was able to get a good sense of a lot of the community agencies and what their issues [were] and how we could work more closely with people in the neighborhoods to be able to maybe offer some resources that they hadn’t known about,” she said. “A lot of it was about education. It continues to be about education, because my agency provides a lot of education to entrepreneurs.”
Part of what makes Barge proud of her work, she said, is being able to provide that education alongside the financing.
One of RICMI’s more successful programs is the Genesis Center Gateway Business Forum – a 13-week program run annually primarily aimed at low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs. Attendees learn the nuts and bolts of running a business, marketing and financial literacy.
Barge recommends the program to people looking to strike out on their own because it not only provides advice, but it can help them decide whether they really want to own a business.
“Sometimes it’s a problem because you put the cart before the horse and you’re spending money before you even realize what it is you want to do and how you want to do it,” Barge said.
RICMI also runs an annual conference aimed at women of low and moderate incomes – both entrepreneurs and potential business owners. The one-day event, called Emerging Women in Business, covers topics such as financing and developing a business plan, and it features motivational speakers that Barge hopes not only inspire the women, but also make them aware of the challenges they are going to face in business.
Barge said she sees more and more women willing to take on their challenges and aim for personal success; she has seen a sharp increase in the number of female applicants to the two nonprofits’ loan programs. In fact, she estimates that women-led business creations are outpacing male-owned ones at a rate of three to one.
She describes the women that she encounters as passionate, energetic, hard-working and full of great ideas. What some do lack is management and employee relations skills, a factor she attributes to a lack of mentorship from older generations for women entrepreneurs. However, Barge said, that gap is closing.
Barge is also happy to see a growing number of minority-owned businesses, even if they are modest endeavors such as grocery stores and hair salons.
“If you’re looking in the entrepreneurial community, quite a bit of the Hispanic community tends to gravitate toward things they have experience in, which tends to be the bodegas and the types of businesses that they think their customers will definitely patronize,” Barge said.
But those are important businesses, Barge said. Businesses that meet the needs of the communities that MIDC and RICMI are working in are the ones that are going to be providing jobs and weaving themselves into the fabrics of the neighborhoods.
“That’s a success story, because it’s very gratifying to know that the money that you put out there has done more than just open a store,” she said. “It’s actually creating wealth in the neighborhood it’s in.” •
To read about other Business Women, in the rest of the PBN series, click here.
