rrbatch

Small Business Lending: Why the Programs Need to Change

I volunteer with our local chapter of SCORE, a private foundation and "resource partner" of the SBA. We see budding entrepreneurs each week looking for startup capital and advice on how to develop business plans and organize new operations. We have access to the SBA web site, publications, and financial resources, but over the past years I have yet to see any of these "services" be useful to a new - or existing - business.

There are other federal and state agencies with paid employees offering services similar to those we offer as volunteers - except that our staff of eight volunteers has more than 200 years of collective business experience, whereas few of the government employees we see have ever held responsible positions outside of government. One recent client with a highly credible business plan was denied an opportunity to even meet with a bureaucrat responsible for disbursing state Small Business Financing Authority funds because she was "extremely busy preparing for an upcoming Board meeting".

I doubt that the SBA or corresponding (and duplicative) state agencies can be reformed to be more responsive or useful. Better to save the taxpayers the expense of maintaining these costly and useless agencies, and let small businesses make their case to the wide variety of established private funding sources. And support community-based volunteer advisors like SCORE to help guide new businesspeople through the hoops.