Having so much help to turn to that you don’t know where to begin to ask for it isn’t the worst of problems for an enterprise to have, but it can be one of the most confusing. Such an abundance of resources can be found in southwestern Pennsylvania, where non-profit agencies dedicated to helping business owners and entrepreneurs succeed in the region number about 150.
To help a seeker of business assistance get started in the most helpful place, three leaders of the Southwestern Pennsylvania economic development community have organized a guide and placed it online. The comprehensive guide offers an alphabetical listing of the region’s business-assistance agencies with online links and telephone numbers and matches each with color-coded designations of its broad categories of assistance. The resulting grid can be viewed on line or downloaded here.
The three organizations responsible for pulling the information together in a single, usable format–the Small Business Development Center of Duquesne University, SMC Small Business Councils, and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance–responded to the inquiries of client businesses seeking assistance in specific areas.
SMC President Lee Taddonio says that his organization’s interest in the project was motivated by manufacturers “who were seeking information on training and funding sources. A comprehensive source was unfortunately not available.”
However, Duquesne University’s SBDC had earlier produced a guide, and, with extensive updating, it provided the basis for building the online resource.
“The array of services to help businesses is really quite impressive,” SBDC Director Mary McKinney says.
Source: Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, Philip Cynar
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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