Today, we are proud to announce that this dedication has paid off: loan volume has more than doubled this year despite the huge loss of funding!

In fact, we have awarded more loans in 2011 than we did in the preceding two years combined: up to 61 loans this year, compared to 22 loans in 2009 and 30 in 2010.

How did we achieve this while rapidly reducing staff from 6 to 2?

One word: Collaboration.

The majority of these loans were provided to clients involved in the case management services of our partner organizations: Genesis Women’s Shelter, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program and CitySquare (formerly Central Dallas Ministries).

These organizations are each best-in-class in their respective fields. Together, we have provided hope and healing to women transitioning out of violent relationships; we have provided homes and stability to the formerly homeless who are working hard to achieve self-sufficiency; and we have brought redemption and freedom to the families of the formerly incarcerated.

These partnerships are not about charity. They are about justice; they are about opportunity.

Our 2012 goal is just as ambitious: double again to over 120 loans.
WHEN we achieve it (not if!), this will be the highest volume of loans in our 15-year history.

Join our fight for the most vulnerable members of our community.Together, we can provide people with the dignity of being able to turn around their own lives. Donate today at http://planfund.org/donate/

Even a gift of $25 will make a huge impact on our mission and on the lives of our borrowers. Please make an investment in THEIR future by supporting the PLAN Fund today!

YFS Magazine (Young, Fabulous and Self-Employed) tapped The PLAN Fund’s Executive Director, Jeremy Gregg, among its list of the “nation’s leading entrepreneurs” for his advice on how small business owners can improve their relationships with customers.

The article, entitled “Make Customers Want You: 7 Tips to Improve Customer Relationships,” included the following piece of advice from Gregg:

Say thank you in multiple ways: via email, social media, phone, formal receipt and handwritten note. The latter is crucial; in a world of electronic communication, everyone still loves to receive a hand-written thank you note .

As a follow-up, Gregg offers: “Just saying thank you seems so basic. And yet, when was the last time that you received a genuine expression of gratitude from a company whom you hired? Imagine how much more you would appreciate your dentist, your lawn man, or even the neighborhood pizza delivery place if they sent you a hand-written note to thank you for your business. They all have your address; why not take these 2 minutes to build a customer relationship that could return exponential more value to your firm?”

“You are competing with every other small business out there who is hungry for your business. Never take you customer for granted.”

Read the full article at:
http://yfsentrepreneur.com/2011/12/06/make-customers-want-you-7-tips-to-improve-customer-relationships/2/

Among the items that Gregg discussed, the article cited the following as major problems facing low-income people:

• Housing costs representing more than the HUD-recommended 1/3 of overall expenses;
• Exorbitant amounts of money spent on cell phones;
• Unhealthy and expensive choices for food, particularly for working people.

“Jim embodied so much of what I know about this bank,” says Jeremy Gregg, Executive Director of the PLAN Fund. “He had a deep passion for people, and was particularly committed to providing opportunities for low-income people to turn around their own lives.”

“Jim took me to lunch shortly after I joined the PLAN Fund. I knew about his personal passion for the arts, so I asked him why he and the bank had provided so much support to us over the years. His reply was immediate and straightforward: ‘Because you are there for people who don’t have anywhere else to go.’ Those words made a deep impression on me, and they have continued to inform how I lead this organization.”

Mr. Garavaglia was particularly supportive of The PLAN Fund’s partnership with the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP), which was forged through grants from Comerica and with the leadership of Irvin Ashford, Jr., Comerica’s vice president of Public Affairs and the Vice President of PLAN Fund’s Board of Director. Together, Mr. Ashford and Mr. Garavaglia opened the door for the PLAN Fund to invest in the lives of men for whom entrepreneurship was the best way to avoid returning to prison. Gregg continues:

“I could not imagine a better corporate partner than Comerica. They instantly saw the opportunity within this partnership, when many other donors were hesitant. Today, thanks largely to Comerica’s investment, the PLAN Fund has doubled its number of loans compared to 2010. Better still, we have a stellar repayment rate of 100% from PEP borrowers — they haven’t missed a single payment.”

“Jim was very proud of our accomplishments together, and I will greatly miss his friendship. He leaves behind a legacy of sincere love and generous laughter; what more could any of us ask from life than that?”

Mr. Garavaglia served Comerica for 26 years and continued to reside in Detroit until his passing. You can read his full obituary here:
http://obits.mlive.com/obituaries/annarbor/obituary.aspx?n=james-michael-garavaglia&pid=154806833&fhid=5988

David Vasquez from United Medical Evaluators -- PLAN Fund's 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year.

As posted in this blog last week, The PLAN Fund recently hosted its 2011 Business Plan Competition. The event was exclusively sponsored by Capital One.

After several months of hard work and stiff competition, four entrepreneurs emerged as the finalists for over $3,000 in grant funding and software for their businesses.

We are proud to announce that this year’s 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year is David Vasquez from United Medical Evaluators!

“David soared through the first round of competition with the highest-ranked business plan in the competition. He secured his victory with a stellar presentation before an audience of nearly forty people, including our remarkable panel of judges,” says Jeremy Gregg, Executive Director of The PLAN Fund.

“We are proud to name David Vasquez our Entrepreneur of the Year.”

The PLAN Fund’s 2011 Business Plan Competition began in August, when over a dozen hand-selected small business owners were invited to attend a half-day orientation and business planning workshop. Invites were extended to a small group of entrepreneurs who had successfully completed a robust training program through either the PLAN Fund or one of its nonprofit partners. Mr. Vasquez was invited as a past graduate of the PLAN Fund’s Small Business IDA program, which was offered in partnership with the YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas.

“We knew that David was something special during those initial sessions with the YWCA. He had a gleam in his eye when he talked about his business, and the instructor who led the sessions commented on how remarkably dedicated David appeared to be,” continues Gregg.

“Over the past year, David has built his company into one of the most profitable start-ups that we have ever had the privilege to support. We expect great things from David and his team over the coming years.”

Learn more about David’s company here:
http://unitedmedeval.com/contactus.aspx

You can also see photos of David and our other finalists on our Flickr sitehere:

The site’s Cindy Vanegas recently included PLAN Fund’s Executive Director, Jeremy Gregg, as one of the marketing experts in her article, “Creating a Successful Seasonal Business All Year-Round.”

Business strategist Jeremy Gregg recommended business owners study the demographics and psychographics of their primary customer base to help turn a profit 12 months a year.

“You need to understand why they come to your store during one season and look for ways that same pattern of behavior drives their purchase process in other seasons,” he advised. “For example, transition your business from just focusing on ski apparel to focusing on “adventure apparel…..[because] the kind of people who go skiing also go on summer trips, spring break trips and more.”

The article also cited:

• SageWorks
• Christopher Wise/Expressionables

• Anthony A.
• Cole K.
• Andrew S.
• David V.

A scene from ABC's hit show, "Shark Tank."

 The site recently included The PLAN Fund‘s Jeremy Gregg as one of its “46 experts on marketing” in the article, The Future of Marketing: 46 Experts Share Their Predictions For 2012. He is quoted with the following:

The future of marketing will be turning your customers into your salesforce. The initial foray into this area has begun with retailers offering discounts to customers who can prove that they “checked in” to their store on Facebook, Foursquare, etc. We are also seeing more and more campaigns that provide incentives for connecting to a company’s social media presence.

This trend will continue, and possibly extend into the “rewards card” programs; customers could be rewarded over a long-term basis by attracting
other customers who use these cards; many grocers have been doing this for years with their nonprofit partners (i.e. donating 1% of purchases to a charity whose donors register their rewards cards with that charity’s number).

Webinars as an educational and marketing platform saw a huge rise in popularity in 2011, and will continue to grow in popularity in 2012.

Read the whole article here:
http://www.business2community.com/marketing/the-future-of-marketing-46-experts-share-their-predictions-for-2012-088529

More significantly, the company has pledged to leverage their nearly 7,000 stores to raise funds from their customer base through the sale of $5 wristbands with the message “Indivisible” written in red, white, and blue. This has the potential to raise millions to support the CDFIs (community development financial institutions) that are part of the Opportunity Finance Network:

100% of the donations will go to community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to finance underserved community businesses—small businesses, microenterprises, nonprofit organizations, commercial real estate developers, and affordable housing developers. All of these community businesses help to create and sustain local jobs.

At the recent Microfinance USA conference in New York (one of the world’s largest annual gatherings of such organizations), the organizers launched the event with the profound statement that: “if 1 in 3 of our country’s small businesses created a single job, that would create enough jobs to eliminate unemployment.”

The time is now for the country to step up and support solutions that work — providing loans, training and support to the entrepreneurs and small businesses who will create the jobs needed to energize our economy!

Thank you, Starbucks; let’s hope that other companies follow your lead!

Related articles:

• Starbucks U.S. microlending program aims to create jobs (NJ.com)
• Starbucks: Venti Plans for Micro Loans (BigThink)
• Joe Nocera: Microlending for our fellow Americans — and our future (The Dallas Morning News)

The article, entitled “Top 5 Secrets To Hyper-Local Marketing,” can be viewed here.

The article describes how small businesses can leverage the power of hyper-local advertising such as neighborhood newsletters, collaborations with other small businesses, viral marketing with contests/catchy events and partnerships with local charities.