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CASH-ing in on Dreams by Wenda Reed / Photos By Mira Poling

You have a great idea, and you want to start your own business.

In a recession?

When you’re a low-income woman?

When you have no collateral and poor or nonexistent credit?

When you don’t have any business training or time to get an MBA?

No way, says conventional wisdom.

Yes, say the people at Washington CASH (Community Alliance for Self-Help), a 15-year-old Seattle nonprofit that helps clients create a pathway out of poverty using small loans and business training.

To become a client, a person over 18 must have a viable idea for a small business and have some experience that relates to the field. He or she must be willing to listen and learn and have an income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($44,100 for a family of four). Seventy-six percent of the clients are women, and most are considered “unbankable” and not eligible for loans.

After an orientation, clients enroll in an eight-week practical Business Development Training course in English or Spanish. Upon completion, they can join a peer group, take out loans, enroll in advanced financing classes, and have access to continuing support and mentorship.

MAKING HER OWN BUSINESS

Rocio (Rosie) Rodriguez meets me at the door of her little white house on Beacon Hill, dressed in a long, pink cardigan over a turquoise flowered dress. Inside is a burst of color and activity — games, toys, signs in Spanish, coloring tables, a farm setup in the middle of the floor. At her El Cuento Spanish Immersion Preschool, children who are not native Spanish speakers switch back and forth between Spanish and English. Rodriguez speaks to them only in Spanish:

“I want orange Play-Doh,” 2-year-old Emily says.

“En Español, por favor,” Rodriguez replies.

“All I could say when I got here was “Feliz Navidad,” 5-year-old Ivan tells me. “I can teach you some words.”

He points to a colored mat on the floor:

“Rojo” is red.
“Verde” is green.
“Perro” is dog.
“Gato” is cat.”

Bilingual education is a hot trend now, as educators realize that the malleable brains of young children are ideal for learning a second language, and that total immersion is the best method. “It is very important to be bilingual,” Rodriguez says. “The children understand the language first, and then they learn to talk.”

Rodriguez earned a bachelor’s degree in Mexico and worked in bilingual schools there before immigrating to the United States 16 years ago, and she has worked at schools in the Seattle area since that time. “But I wanted to do it my own way,” she says. “I wanted to make my own business.” She employs the best practices in preschool education, incorporating reading, academics, art, lots of hands-on activities, indoor and outdoor play, and plenty of love and attention.

She and her husband, Fernando Alarcon, took Washington CASH’s eight-week Business Development Training in Spanish last year, and she opened her school in March 2009. Alarcon, who has launched his own home repair and maintenance business, made the wooden table and chairs for the preschool, and Rodriguez borrowed $1,000 from CASH to help buy toys and learning materials.

Washington CASH’s microloan program is based on the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, where Nobel Prize-winning founder Muhammad Yunus pioneered the concept of making small loans to the country’s poorest citizens to help them start very small businesses. Washington CASH’s founder, Peter Rose, then applied the principle to our state, and the organization is the only one in Washington — and one of about 20 nationwide — making this type of microloan.

At twice-monthly member meetings, entrepreneurs who have gone through CASH training exchange ideas and encouragement and hear from mentors. They are authorized to make $1,000 to $5,000 peer loans to members after evaluating their business plans. If a member does not repay the loan, none of the members can access another loan until it is paid off.

“We call it social collateral,” says Cheryl Sesnon, Washington CASH’s director for the past three years. “We don’t pull credit reports and we don’t ask for collateral. The collateral is the member’s relationship with peers in the group.” It is working: Repayment rates in the early years were 89 to 96 percent; for the past two years they have reached 100 percent. Later, clients may be eligible for larger loans and for savings accounts matched with federal and state funds.

GETTING HER WINGS

Every weekday morning Robin Elms and an assistant drive around central Seattle neighborhoods in a big white van equipped with crates and tie-downs. They pick up five to nine clients’ dogs, take them to Marymoor or Magnuson off-leash dog parks or local hiking trails, and get them fully exercised and tired. Surrounded by panting and grinning dogs, the owner of Woof Adventure is in her element, doing what she’s always wanted to do.

“I’m more marketable than other (dog-minders) because I do training all during the day,” says Elms, a licensed dog trainer. “I have a lot of control over the pack.” She sends photos of dogs at play to clients’ Facebook pages so they can say, “Oh look, there’s my baby” when they’re at work, she says. The personal touch ends with notes on what the dogs did and how they behaved when they were returned home.

“I was living on disability in a little 400-square-foot apartment,” Elms explains. She’d studied to be a dog trainer 15 years ago and had been working for other people at little more than minimum wage. “I realized I needed to start my own business; I had lots of energy, but I didn’t know how,” she continues. Two attempts failed before a vocational counselor pointed her toward Washington CASH.

She took the Business Development Training course (held quarterly in Seattle, Bremerton/Kitsap and Burien, and twice a year in Kent. The Burien course is conducted in Spanish).

“They told us, ‘This is how you do marketing; this is your break-even point; this is how you do sales projections.’ It all made sense,” Elms says. “I had my wings.”

She opened Woof Adventure two years ago, concentrating on daily adventures as her “bread and butter,” with dog training for some clients on the side. She is carefully expanding beyond her current 15 clients, planning to bring on another employer this summer to take more dogs to more areas, and possibly adding on-leash walks.

Although she took out a $1,000 member loan for marketing, the training and ongoing support has been the most valuable part of Washington CASH, Elms says. She has been in a peer group for the past 18 months and recently took CASH’s new in-depth finance class, covering personal finances and savings, business finances, taxes, credit and more. “I’m working on getting my credit reestablished to be at a bankable level,” she says.

As a client at 100 percent of the federal poverty level interested in taking her business full-time, Elms qualified for Washington CASH’s Business Accelerator program. “I now have an office instead of everything on my dining room table,” she says of her shared space in Rainier Valley with full access to computers and office equipment. Best of all, participants bounce ideas off other CASH entrepreneurs, Elms says. She also meets regularly with a CASH staff member to keep her plans on track to meet her business goals.

“I’m not alone in a vacuum anymore,” she says.

Sesnon reinforces the importance of education and support. She has been a small-business owner herself, running Great Cakes and Edible Monuments in Redmond. “There’s a lot you have to know and do, and not knowing who to turn to, you do a lot of guessing,” she says. After earning a culinary degree, she became director of Common Meals — later renamed FareStart — from 1994 to 2000. She earned her master’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership at Seattle University, and as a board member of Washington CASH, jumped at the chance to apply for the director’s position in 2007.

“We recognize the success of the person, the increase in household income, not necessarily the success of the business,” Sesnon says. “We recruit women because our model of building a community goes with traditional women’s networking groups. Most women in those types of groups already know the language of business. Our clients have to learn it.”

Approximately 2,800 low-income people have taken the eight-week training course. Some find that small-business ownership is not for them, or that their business plan won’t work but that something different will. Washington CASH clients have started or expanded more than 925 businesses since 1995, and the organization has made 362 loans, totaling $748,000. Remarkably, 82 percent of clients left poverty within 18 months of receiving services and 70 percent are still in business.

FINDING ‘I CAN DO THIS’

Kris Colcock opened her Spirit Wind aromatherapy shop in Port Orchard last year. Marty Cartwright, a licensed massage therapist who shares Colcock’s space with two other entrepreneurs, found out about Washington CASH from the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind. The two women took the Business Development Training class together and joined a member group.

Employment statistics can be grim for blind people like Colcock and Cartwright: 70 to 80 percent are unemployed. Still, Colcock says she has “a family bent toward entrepreneurship,” as her parents and grandparents started their own businesses. Following a life change and wanting to support her kids, Colcock used her savings and maxed out her credit cards to open her store selling lotions, candles, essential oils, crystals, jewelry and other items. She invested in a talking cash register and a machine called a “money identifier.” But before taking the Washington CASH class, Colcock was struggling, especially with how to carry inventory, as opposed to running her former eBay business. “I thought about calling it quits,” she says.

“The training class helped me get focused and come up with a business plan. They asked me, ‘What are you trying to do?’ and ‘What is your signature product?’” she says. She learned how to determine her break-even point, how to manage inventory and how to get the word out when she had no money for marketing. She decided to narrow her products line to aromatherapy and products with scents.

She now also gives classes to women on the different aspects of essential oils and how to use them, and helps clients customize scents to meet their particular needs, from energizing to calming. She has just started creating her own lotions. “I love talking with people who come in; they leave feeling better,” she says.

The day I talked with her, Colcock was taking a prototype of a new line of oils to her Washington CASH member meeting to ask for a $1,000 loan.

She says the most important thing she’s gained from CASH is confidence. “They made me believe, ‘You can do this.’”

Sesnon understands. “A lot of our clients don’t believe in themselves, so it’s important for us to believe in our clients,” she says.

MAKING HER DREAMS COME TRUE

Not everyone comes to Washington CASH as a novice.

When she heard about Washington CASH a year ago, Michele Bayle, owner of wink eyewear in Columbia City, was already running a business taking designer optical lines to her clients’ workplaces. “My dream was to own my own store,” she says. The Seward Park resident and licensed dispensing optician had “coveted” a place in Columbia City for three years.

She had already been a co-owner of an optical boutique, but the dream of owning her own shop in Columbia City seemed impossible to realize. Having gone through some major life changes, she had lost her house and had no collateral, her credit debt was high, and her income was below poverty level. “I was going through lots of personal transitions: Should I reinvent myself? Should I move forward in business?”

“They meet you where you are,” she says of CASH staff. “Whether you’re brand-new or ready to expand or ready to do another business.”

Bayle took the basic Business Development Training and was accepted into the Business Accelerator program, joining a peer member group with other entrepreneurs moving to full-time businesses. She learned about accounting, taxes, marketing, legal issues and hiring employees. She opened her store in May, hired three part-time employees and held three marketing events in the first month. Initial success surpassed her expectations. “Honestly, they made my dreams come true,” she says of CASH.

Support didn’t stop after Bayle opened her doors. She had questions about how much insurance to buy, how to train employees and about signage and credit card machines. “The beauty of CASH is that when I need help, I can call the office and someone can help me. Instead of being overwhelmed by the whole big picture, they help me determine ‘This is the most important thing to do today.’ They keep me accountable.”

“You’re in business for yourself, not by yourself.”

Wenda Reed is a Bothell writer and frequent contributor to Seattle Woman. Photographer Mira Poling is a graduate of Washington CASH. View her work at www.mirastories.com.

Washington CASH Opens Retail Store in Pioneer Square this Month

Have a hankering for some wild, organic chili sauce or ethnic food products? Want to see a selection of handcrafted jewelry, hats, clothing, beauty products, home decor and furniture items from local entrepreneurs? Need a contact for a caterer, house cleaner, contractor, child care provider or elder care provider?

Ventures, “a retail incubator for Washington CASH,” will have a rotating showcase of products from CASH members, as well as a screen and brochures featuring service businesses. The grand opening is scheduled for Saturday, July 24, in the brick-fronted Nord Building, 314 First Ave. S. in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

For the public, Ventures is a place to buy unique merchandise. For Washington CASH participants, it’s a chance to practice their retail skills and see how their products sell before they open their own stores. Local entrepreneurs Tammy James and Miriam Works will manage the store and offer on-site training and one-on-one mentorship to Washington CASH clients.
For more information, call 206-352-1945 or visit www.washingtoncash.org/ventures.

MORE INFO

WASHINGTON CASH: 2100 24th Ave. S., Suite 380 in Southeast Seattle; 206-352-1945; www.washingtoncash.org. Click on “Resources: Member Businesses” for a full list of member entrepreneurs.

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