Mount Pleasant, Texas – The first week of May 2022 is National Small Business Week, according to the USA Small Business Administration. To celebrate, Mount Pleasant Economic Development Corporation is pleased to announce the launch of a $234,000 small business revolving loan fund.
During Q1 2022, the United States Department of Agriculture approved the transfer of a $234,000 Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) from the City of Mount Pleasant, Texas to Mount Pleasant Industrial Development Corporation (dba Mount Pleasant Economic Development Corporation or MPEDC).
A revolving loan fund is a gap financing measure primarily used for development and expansion of small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. It is a self-replenishing pool of money, utilizing interest and principal payments on old loans to issue new ones.
Since 1994, MPEDC has played an active role in the industrial development of rural northeast Texas, specifically Mount Pleasant and Titus County. Now, through the transfer and activation of a $234,000 Revolving Loan Fund granted to the City of Mount Pleasant in 1999 (but only used once in 2008), MPEDC seeks to broaden its ability to provide support for small business and entrepreneurial endeavors.
“We appreciate the City’s partnership on the RLF transfer and city council’s recognition that this specific financing mechanism is best utilized outside City Hall, through economic development channels,” said Nathan Tafoya, MPEDC Executive Director.
Applications for RLF funds will be accepted on a continual basis until funds are depleted. All applicants for RLF funding will be required to complete an application form and provide a corresponding business plan with verifiable data which demonstrates that their proposed projects are economically feasible, sustainable, and will provide benefits to the rural/micropolitan community, either through job creation or infrastructure and/or facility improvements. This includes façade improvements.
The MPEDC RFP is designed to finance and/or develop small and emergining private business enterprises physically located within the City of Mount Pleasant or its Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ).
The RLF will be operated under the guidance of the following Revolving Loan Fund Plan and more information can be found at mpedc.org.
The MPEDC Board of Directors have agreed to sit on the RLF’s Loan Review Committee (LRC) to review all RLF loan applications as part of their existing review processes. Other key members of the LRC will include leadership from the Northeast Texas Small Business Development Center (NET SBDC) and the Mount Pleasant/Titus County Chamber of Commerce.
“The City of Mount Pleasant has a strong history of forging partnerships to do what’s best for both industry and the community and this is just another example of that,” said Mr. Tafoya.
MPEDC has been expanding its assistance offerings to the small business community since 2018, to the degree it is able by state statute.
For instance, during the COVID-19 2020 shutdown, MPEDC provided technical assistance and a $25,000 relief match to the Mount Pleasant/Titus County Chamber of Commerce for its utility assistance program.
The MPEDC also hosts and updates a publicly available commercial real estate listing database on its website at mpedc.org. Additionally, it funds a small business portal with enterprise-level business intelligence tools such as SizeUp Mount Pleasant and Local Intel. The tools are available for free to the public.
In today’s information economy, businesses without access to information are at a higher risk of failure and stunted growth. MPEDC is committed to helping local small businesses successfully start and grow by subsidizing programs and services like GIS Planning, SizeUp, and Local Intel.
“At MPEDC, we want any business opening in our community to be the most prepared for success,” Mr. Tafoya said. “To that end, we offer a repository of business-oriented and development-related data on our website that we hope our community continues to take advantage of.”
