This Non Profit Helps Businesses Grow

From a dentist in Gladstone to an auto repair center in Platte City and a pizza shop in Richmond, small businesses are gaining a big advantage by working with a local non-profit organization that specializes in capital for their growth.

Midwest Small Business Finance is one of the Midwest’s most successful administrators of federal Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. Offering a comprehensive range of programs and helping to minimize paperwork and red tape, MSBF was founded to help small businesses needing low-interest, fixed rate capital.

“These low-interest loans help small and growing businesses to better leverage their limited capital,” explained MSBF Loan Officer Frances Sheffield. “In many cases, they would not qualify for a traditional loan but this gives them an opportunity to grow.”

Minimum Requirements

Sheffield noted that all MSBF loans require fixed assets as collateral but otherwise are among the most flexible options available to area small businesses. With a half-million dollar maximum, the SBA 504 Loan is the most popular. MSBF also operates its own Revolving Loan Fund in Clay and Platte Counties. The revolving program is especially helpful for challenging cases and has a maximum of $150,000.

Midwest Small Business Finance was selected as one of only 20 such organizations in the country to administer another effort, the Intermediary Lending Pilot Program. This service allows MSBF to provide fixed-asset funding up to $200,000 for small businesses in Missouri and the eastern part of Kansas.

These numbers don’t tell the whole story. MSBF is a perennial leader in Midwestern small business loans because the small staff focuses on making life easy for borrowers and traditional lenders who partner with programs like the 504.

“Lenders appreciate these programs because they keep the premium position as a lender and they have less capital invested,” Sheffield explained. “Small business owners like this because they have access to low-interest, fixed rate capital that otherwise might not be available.”

Bringing Development, Bringing Jobs

MSBF promotes all of this because small businesses are where most job development occurs in the nation, although that’s often overlooked. An affiliate of the Clay County Economic Development Council, MSBF shares the goal of job creation as a key component of economic development. “These loans help create jobs and grow our communities,” Sheffield explained. “A lot of these businesses wouldn’t qualify for traditional loans.”

MSBF is good at what they do. Named the nation’s Certified Business Development Company of the Year in 2011, they were more recently selected as one of only 20 not-for-profit organizations in the nation to implement a new SBA pilot program. Sheffield believes more businesses should take advantage of these opportunities.

“A lot of businesses hesitate because they worry about paperwork or red tape,” Sheffield concluded. “But we’re here to reduce that. Our job is to make it simple and put money in the hands of small businesses that want to grow.”

Formed in 1982 as the Clay/Platte Development Corporation, MSBF is the region’s only recipient of the National Certified Business Development Company of the Year award. For more information, call (816) 468-4989.