by EGBI Tech Team | May 5, 2017 | News & Events
With over 13 years experience working to grow small businesses within the Central Texas area, Barbra Boeta will transition from Program Director to Executive Director at the Economic Growth Business Incubator (EGBI). For the past 6 years,she has spear-headed the organizations training programs and volunteer recruitment, she is looking forward to building and securing relationships in order to grow EGBI and local small businesses within the Austin area.
by EGBI Tech Team | Jan 22, 2014 | News & Events
2013 Blog Posts
What We Are Thankful for
Al Lopez, December 16, 2013
Thanksgiving may have just passed, but I have not stopped being thankful for another great year here at EGBI!
Just before the holiday, we celebrated our last graduation for clients who completed our entrepreneurship training. In all, this year we had 80 individuals complete at least 30 hours of business training and present their business plan to their class and the EGBI staff. The graduation celebrated a wonderful blend of new and developing partnerships, including Las Comadres para las Americas, University of Texas Pan Am Veteran’s Center, El Buen Samaritano, and FuturoFund. Read more…
Mother and Daughter Business Kicks Off at EGBI
By Nayeli Gallegos, December 13, 2013
Bea Baylor worked as a full time nurse for 20 years. At the same time, for the last seven years, she had been informally running her business from home… providing her services for free most of the time. As a 13 year cancer survivor, Bea has been an advocate for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, helping them create a journey to healing. She wrote the book “My Tribulations Made Me Fabulous” which will be published in 2014, and she was featured in the latest issue of Renewed Magazine. Read more…
EGBI Client Opens Food Trailer on Rainey Street
By Al Lopez, July 30, 2013
About two thirds of EGBI graduates wind up starting a business. In most cases, taking into account their learning, they decide to delay the start to do it in a better prepared way. This is the case of Vann Brown, who graduated from Building Success Program in August 2011. All of last year, she worked on developing her plan, continued to getting business training, attended a couple of our workshops, networked at our Annual Reunion, and kept EGBI in the loop of her progress.
On May 26th, we were thrilled to attend the grand opening of My Granny’s Kitchen food trailer on the fairly exclusive Rainey Street downtown. Read more…
Support EGBI’s First e-Raiser!
Our first online and social media fundraiser, April 16-May 16, 2013
By Al Lopez, April 17, 2013
Last October, I wrote about why I support EGBI, hoping to stimulate some additional support for our organization. Well, needless to say, I was pretty gratified by the results we experienced last fall…
…In an effort to continue to broaden our outreach and diversify our supporters—folks who know about and are willing to invest in EGBI—we’re holding our first ever online and social media fundraiser over the next four weeks. What we would like to do is have as many of our connections (and their connections) commit to a $25 donation to EGBI. Read more…
Is Collaborating Really Beneficial?
By Al Lopez, March 28, 2013
In the last couple of years, as I have navigated around the nonprofit/public sector, I’ve observed very different levels of organizations that are willing to work together when it may be in the very best interest of the clients they serve and the mission they purport to have. Read more…
I know we’ve talked about this, but ARE YOU FINANCIALLY FIT?
By Al Lopez, March 19, 2013
Our initial session for EGBI’s small business startup training is Boot Camp. Many of you have taken it, and I know that many wonder why we are starting our “how to start a business” program with a class on personal finances and credit. However, it is surprising to me how many of the clients who begin our program have very little idea when it comes to their financial obligations, book-keeping and overall financial fitness. So we start with the basics and build on that. Read more…
What kind of clients come to EGBI? Client feature: Teresa Valenzuela-Basa
By Al Lopez, February, 2013
The diversity of our clients is an element that makes our experience here at EGBI especially interesting and rewarding. At one end of the spectrum, we have folks who don’t yet have a specific business but feel that sometime in the future they will start a business. At the other end, we have clients who already have a business developing, but have reached a point where they realize they really need and want to have a more formal business plan, such was the case of Teresa Valenzuela-Basa. Read more…
EGBI Client Highlight: Home Help Services by Verobran
By Nayeli Gallegos, January, 2013
Veronica Trevisan is the Co-Owner of Home Help Services by Verobran along with Branbilia Mendoza. They offer home support services, a combination of residential cleaning and home health care. Veronica, a native from Argentina and Branbilia (Bran), a native from Mexico, met each other in 2006 while working for a Mexican Taqueria. Read more…
Happy Holidays from EGBI
By Al Lopez, December 2012
As we approach the holiday season, we reflect on the great year we had. We are thankful to be in a place that nurtures the entrepreneurial spirit and contributes to the development of our community; we are thankful for our growing list of clients and supporters; and we are thankful for everything we accomplished in 2012. Read more…
by EGBI Tech Team | Dec 13, 2013 | News & Events
What We Are Thankful for
Al Lopez, December 16, 2013
Thanksgiving may have just passed, but I have not stopped being thankful for another great year here at EGBI!
Just before the holiday, we celebrated our last graduation for clients who completed our entrepreneurship training. In all, this year we had 80 individuals complete at least 30 hours of business training and present their business plan to their class and the EGBI staff. The graduation celebrated a wonderful blend of new and developing partnerships, including Las Comadres para las Americas, University of Texas Pan Am Veteran’s Center, El Buen Samaritano, and FuturoFund.
Even with our amazing staff, we couldn’t do all this alone. In 2013, EGBI delivered over 550 class hours of training – a 44% increase over 2012! Our dedicated volunteers facilitated over half of those class hours. And while it is difficult to single one out, we are especially thankful for Manuel Alverdi of Taxes Impuestos y Mas who was named Volunteer of the Year at our third annual Celebrating Success event.
At our Celebrating Success event, we highlighted the fellowship and generosity of our supporters. Most non-profit events yield about 50% of the gross proceeds. Keeping our costs very low enabled us to direct nearly 90% of the proceeds directly to our program needs.
Another key measure of our success is the way prior students have stayed in touch with the EGBI family. At our year-end event we heard from Jason and Michelle Villarreal, owners of Villarreal Insect and Pest Solutions, and Donie Torrance, owner of Nails Naturally. They shared moving personal testimonies of how their heart for entrepreneurship led them to realize a dream with great benefits to their families – and how EGBI played a key role in making those dreams come alive.
To date, EGBI has graduated 250 clients from our Building Success Program. About one-third of our graduates have started their businesses and are generating revenue, paying taxes, and employing, on average, two and a half employees – with relatively young and growing businesses. Last year, our clients reported over $6M of revenue and almost 150 jobs created or sustained. We’re looking forward to our annual client survey for 2013, and anticipate even more impressive results.
It’s great to be a part of an organization that is successfully equipping entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams. We are grateful for the tremendous support we received this year from our partners at the Housing Authority of the City of Austin, the Chambers of Commerce, Las Comadres para las Americas, Walmart, Wells Fargo, AT&T, IBM, and BB&T just to name a few. We couldn’t do the work we do without their support.
We’re looking forward to 2014, a year that will have plenty of opportunities. We recognize there will also be challenges, but we are confident that with hard work and the consistent collaboration and support from our partners, we will overcome whatever difficulties come our way. You can be a part of this opportunity – it’s never too late to invest in our efforts. Won’t you consider a year-end, tax-deductible gift to EGBI to assist us in expanding our programs and services?
Happy holidays, all! We look forward to working with you in the New Year!
by EGBI Tech Team | Apr 17, 2013 | News & Events
Support Our First e-Raiser!
EGBI’s first online and social media fundraiser, April 16-May 16, 2013
By Al Lopez, April 17, 2013
Last October, I wrote about why I support EGBI, hoping to stimulate some additional support for our organization. Well, needless to say, I was pretty gratified by the results we experienced last fall.
Many of you who have come to know EGBI the last couple of years know that we re-launched the organization in 2011. After a few years of a great partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Austin and outstanding collaboration with the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, we embarked on a strategy that would increase awareness of our efforts in order to expand our pool of clients, volunteers, and supporters.
In these two years, we have earnestly driven to expand awareness of our mission and increase the investment in our efforts. We are thrilled to have attracted new investors who are supporting our work. We are most satisfied with the fact that the largest percentage of our clients comes from referrals from previous clients, and we have many clients who have become investors in EGBI. Those of you who know our work also know that one of our objectives is to keep the price of our services as low as possible, while we continue to improve the quality and variety of services we provide (some of which are unique, like our ground-breaking Curso Empresarial bilingual training program).
In an effort to continue to broaden our outreach and diversify our supporters—folks who know about and are willing to invest in EGBI—we’re holding our first ever online and social media fundraiser over the next four weeks. What we would like to do is have as many of our connections (and their connections) commit to a $25 donation to EGBI. We, of course, have our annual year-end fundraiser – Celebrating Success. Adding an annual eRaiser every spring will allow us to target small donations from our connections, like you, with an appeal to share the opportunity with your respective associates.
So, vote for EGBI with a little bit of your wallet, then share the opportunity with your friends. We’re hoping the increased awareness will expand our client and investor pool. A $25 donation may seem small, but when you recognize that $25 covers 50% of the cost of up to 12-weeks of training for a client, you see how even that small amount can make a big difference in an entrepreneur’s life.
So, please join in and help spread the word – we’ll announce the results of this effort at our EGBI Reunion on May 16th.
Sincerely,
Al Lopez
EGBI Executive Director
Click here to make a donation and please help us spread the word through your social media outlets!
by EGBI Tech Team | Apr 15, 2013 | News & Events
Why I support EGBI
By Al Lopez, October 2012
We have been asking our stakeholders to support the Economic Growth Business Incubator (EGBI), and we have seen an unprecedented increase of individuals willing to support us – including our clients! It is very gratifying to get such strong endorsements from people who know us the best.
Personally, I support EGBI. Of course I do, I’m the Executive Director for Pete’s sake. But, if you were to question why have I invested my work, and sure perhaps some of my own personal resources in this organization, I would say that over the years, I have become pretty passionate about community and economic development. I decided a couple of years ago that I was going to take my extensive business experience and find a mission that would complement my passions. EGBI has turned out to be that, especially given the importance of small businesses to our economy.
I’ve witnessed the development of our clients as they progress through our program and receive one-on-one consultations. They express their gratitude for a program that opened their eyes to the opportunities and also the challenges of being a business owner. I’ve seen them come with a dream and leave with a foundation for their business plan. I’ve enjoyed seeing them developing their marketing and networking skills by actively taking advantage of their free chamber membership. I am proud of our clients, and we feel their struggles and celebrate their successes. Starting a small business can be a fragile situation, that’s why EGBI staff, along with our volunteers, strive to be a resource that will help them succeed.
In the current economic environment, getting new investors (I much prefer investors to donors) for a non-profit is difficult, but we have seen that organizations and individuals who share the same passion for economic development are willing to support us. We are hoping to continue to increase the number of folks who know about our work and are willing to invest with me in helping EGBI prosper.
Our Second Annual Celebrating Success event on December 6th is the perfect opportunity to get to know more about what we do and if you like, financially support our organization to allow us to continue to expand our capacity, reach and impact on the community we serve.
