Spotlight On: Renay Dossman, President, Neighborhood Development Center

Spotlight On: Renay Dossman, President, Neighborhood Development Center

2022-11-08T11:48:11-05:00November 8th, 2022|Economy, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Spotlight On|

3 min read November 2022The MSP region is setting the stepping stones to develop tech hubs and other measures to nurture what is poised to become a thriving entrepreneurial environment. Renay Dossman, president of the Neighborhood Development Center (NDC), spoke with Invest: and discussed recent developments and the needs of those the NDC works with.

What has been the evolution of the NDC in the recent past? 

After everything that has happened, we are coming together better to work better together, with a sizable solidarity dividend. New partnerships have been formed and new conversations are being had even right now. To be more in solidarity, we are holding a conference for all of the Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to come together so we can talk about education and CDFI advocacy. In tandem, we are partnering with other organizations on their key initiatives. We need to make sure we do not let this time stop us from continuing down that path. For NDC, keeping a focus on our team and their development is my No. 1 priority. We are also looking to continue our work on a larger scale — more loans, more grants — because we know how essential those things are and how effective they can be when they are more tailored, with specific training, workshops and more specialized technical assistance because entrepreneurs now want to own their real estate, they want to own their buildings. We need to help with that. 

Internally, it becomes about finding a way toward financial sustainability, what does that look like and how can we grow our earned revenue so we can be more flexible and more agile to address the challenges that we face so we do not have to wait for a funder.  

What do entrepreneurs need most from the NDC? 

NDC has been around for 30 years. We have provided about 80,000 hours of technical assistance to entrepreneurs in the last two years alone, added to $10 million in loans and grants. We have a highly intense focus on getting dollars out to these entrepreneurs. We spend a lot of time with the entrepreneurs. There are about 450 entrepreneurs every year who go through our four pillars — training, technical assistance or business development, lending and real estate. The biggest thing for all these entrepreneurs is access to affordable capital. Because we are a CDFI, our lending is based a lot more on character and commitment to the community versus credit score or the amount of collateral you have. 

We work in the 10 most underserved communities across the metro. We are deliberate and focused on those communities because we believe in them. With our theory of change, we create generational wealth for these entrepreneurs, and these entrepreneurs become leaders in their communities. We believe that you create jobs and you hire people that look like you, so we are very deliberate and focused on who we deal with. From their side, entrepreneurs are asking for more focused, specialized technical assistance. In parallel, our entrepreneurs are increasingly asking for a mindset reset — a mental wellness focus on the entrepreneur that is culturally specific.

Also, from our data, we noticed Black and Latina women entrepreneurs were not making it all the way through our ecosystem. They might not complete their business plan and the training. They might get some technical assistance. They might not start their business. We were curious about what was happening and why this was happening. We found out they needed an extra level or layer of support to help hold them accountable, they needed mentorship, coaching and development, maybe specialized training and funding and a bit more one-on-one attention. We started this program called Black and Latina Opportunity to Connect (BLOC), which provides specialized training and technical assistance to these women. We are preparing a similar program with just Latina women.

What is your outlook for the next couple of years? 

There is no way that this organization could be as successful as it is without the entrepreneurs that we support and their tenacity and grit. They give us life, so we will maintain those traditions and build on them with more gratitude, more strength and focused development. In 2023, we are going to start a mentoring program internally for our team because without this team, we could not do this work. As I look forward to next year, one of the priorities is to elevate our volunteer programme, and we are looking for mentors and volunteers to support this work. I also look forward to really digging into some innovative ways to do real estate development, where we can have more ownership for the entrepreneurs as we do that in different ways and with new lending programs that we can create in partnership with others. 

We are also looking at a potential partnership with Metro State on cybersecurity and creating a tech incubator. Entrepreneurs do not need to be confined to just a certain sector, such as the food sector or the construction sector. The technology sector is open and available to them, so we will continue to look into ways of giving them access to those resources, to create new programming for that, with new loans or new grants. We are super-excited about where we are going for next year and really proud and grateful for how we made it through these last couple of years. 

For more information, visit:

https://www.ndc-mn.org/

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