Workshop draws fledgling Hispanic entrepreneurs

In this follow-up to a 2006 PBN series on the R.I. Small Business Development Center’s Primer Paso business planning workshop for Latino entrepreneurs, we see how participants are doing a year later and how the workshop has grown.
ECAS Theater, the state’s only Latino theater group, has taken great financial strides since taking the Primer Paso workshop last winter, artistic director Francis Parra says.
The theater is still waiting to receive nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service, a process that can take two years, Parra said. But the volunteer-based group has received a $130,000 grant from Hispanics in Philanthropy, a global nonprofit dedicated to strengthening Latino communities by increasing resources for the Latino and Latin American civil sector.
About $20,000 is being used to hire a consultant to develop a plan to raise funds for a permanent location for educational classes and performances, Parra said. The rest will be used for the theater’s first-ever salaried staff and for technology improvements, such as development of a better Web site.
The theater group uses space at Rhode Island College to conduct theater classes and perform plays and this year began performing at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theater in Pawtucket.
“From Primer Paso we understood that we definitely needed a strategic plan,” she said. “Having the consultant is good. We don’t have time to be writing the plan in good English.”
In addition, through contacts at the R.I. Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University, which facilitates the Primer Paso business planning workshops taught in Spanish, Parra was able to get help organizing ECAS Theater’s first fundraising gala dinner in October.
“We never realized we had the tools to have a gala dinner,” she said. “This is very important for public relations.”
Though the theater didn’t raise much money from the actual event, Parra said, 200 people attended and as a result new institutions are supporting the theater.
While ECAS Theater is growing, results have been mixed for the rest of the 12 graduates from the 2006 Primer Paso class. Some have opened and closed businesses, others are struggling to survive.
And most are still trying to raise money. Tomas Avila, Latino business developer at the RISBDC and instructor for the classes, says that’s not a bad thing because it saved them from going into debt.
The 12 graduates together gained access to more than $200,000 in capital, Avila said.
Miriam Garcia, who opened Fiesta Meat Place, a meat market in Central Falls, received $85,000 in loans from Navigant Credit Union, he said. But she and her business partners have since closed the business because interest on the debt financing they received was more than the revenue they were generating.
Andres Almonte, owner of ABC Insurance on Atlantic Avenue in South Providence, was able to secure a $20,000 micro-enterprise loan from the R.I. Economic Development Center, which helped purchase new equipment, such as a fax machine, copier and three computers.
The money also helped upgrade software on existing computers and open a second office for his son, also a licensed insurance agent, on Manton Avenue in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, he said.
But his business is suffering this year compared to last year, Almonte said.
“The economy is a little bit down,” he said. “So many of my clients are moving out of state … People say because we are the smallest state we are feeling the economy more … this year less people are buying new cars and getting insurance.”
As for the workshop itself, it has expanded since last year, he said. It is now offered in two locations – at Johnson & Wales University downtown and Progreso Latino in Central Falls – and it is offered in the spring and the fall, rather than just the latter.
Demand necessitated the expansion, Avila said. On Dec. 12, 47 Latino entrepreneurs were to graduate from the latest Primer Paso workshop. Total participation has grown 70 percent since last year.
Oscar Mejias, a 2006 Primer Paso graduate, says the program helped him develop confidence and a plan for his business. He’s launching tour operator software he developed at the Travel Industry Association of America’s International Pow Wow May 2008 in Las Vegas.
“Definitely the knowledge I got from Primer Paso led me to have a better vision about the future of my business,” he said. •