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Our new website is up and running and we want you
to check it out!
alt.Consulting
We get a lot of questions about our work and
thought this is a perfect time to try to answer some
of those questions. We hope this newsletter and our
new site together will explain what alt.Consulting
does and why we are so committed to our work.
Our sincere thanks goes to our dedicated staff and
supporters who make our work possible with a special
thank you to the small business owners who work so
hard to succeed and make a difference in their
communities.
| What Drives the alt Mission? |
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- Poverty Alleviation - Arkansas and Mississippi
continue to have the highest level of poverty in the
United States even though both states have areas
that are thriving.
- Transforming Communities - Sustaining small
businesses and growing others that will stay in
low-wealth rural and urban communities and become
part
of their
fabric.
- Equity, equality and inclusion - Strong
communities include businesses and leadership that
mirror the population. Strength is found in
diversity.
- Fair wage job creation - Helping small businesses
succeed and pay living wages with benefits reduces
poverty and improves economies.
- Keeping the best and the brightest - without job
opportunities, we continue to lose our best and
brightest. Entrepreneurship offers an exciting career
to young people who may otherwise leave the
Delta.
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| Are Small Businesses Really Important? |
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With the changing economy, it is getting much
harder to attract businesses. Competition for
businesses is tremendous, which often reduces the
community benefit. There are approximately 50,000
communities in the United States competing for
1,000 corporate expansions.
Odds of getting a manufacturing plant are 1 in 50!
Small businesses in the United states
account for 97% of businesses and they employee
about 48% of the workforce. Small businesses drive
the economic performance of the Delta.
The opportunity for transforming the low-
wealth communities of the Delta lies in locally driven
entrepreneurship. alt.Consulting works with minority-
owned, women-owned and rural-based businesses in
50 counties of the Delta, specifically Eastern and
Southern Arkansas, Northern Mississippi, and West
Tennessee.
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| What Types of Businesses Does alt Assist? |
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alt works with businesses at every level - from the
small one-man shop to the large 125+ employee
business.
We have also developed programs that assist Non-
Profits and Municipalities.
Our products and services are customized to
meet each client's individual need. alt meets the
client where they are and helps them grow to the
next level.
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| Are alt's Services Really Affordable? |
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Yes! We work with a wide array of partners and
programs to keep our prices to the client affordable.
The client drives the engagement from the very
beginning. Each client, no matter how small or
how sophisticated, receives a free, on-site
initial assessment. The consultant meets with the
business owner(s) and/or manager(s), and is able to
develop a proposal that:
- Identifies and prioritizes the business needs,
- Estimates the time each project with take,
- Provides the cost based on the estimated
time,
The consultant does not do any of the work until the
client fully understands what is being proposed, the
cost and the benefit.
Through the Technical Assistance Loan Pool, seeded
by Regions Bank, alt.Consulting can finance the
assistance at 0% for up to 2 years.
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| Meet the alt.Consulting Staff |
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With a staff of seven full time employees and one
part time employee, we make the most of all day
staff meetings every two months. These meetings
provide an opportunity to share, learn and get to
know each other better.
This month we were fortunate to have Ben Neu with
us. Ben is visiting from Germany where he has
owned his own computer programming business since
he was 15 years old. During his visit he volunteered
his computer programming knowledge to allow us to
more accurately track our impact. To Ben,
the staff extends a very special Thank You.
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Meet our Executive Director |
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Ines Polonius is a Co-Founder of alt.Consulting and
currently serves as the Executive Director. She has
been active in the field of national and international
economic development for more than fifteen years.
Internationally, she has worked in the Dominican
Republic and Chile. In the United States she has
worked in North Carolina, Massachusettes, and in
Appalachia before moving to Arkansas with her
husband in 1998 to launch the Delta office of
alt.Consulting.
Her dedication to the mission of alt and
her hard work have helped propel alt.Consulting from
a start-up non-profit to a respected organization in
the field of economic development. alt.Consulting
has grown into a regional program with seven full-
time management consultants. alt was recently
cited in the "Promising Practices in Entrepreneurship
Report" published by the Corporation for Enterprise
Development (CFED) of
Washington, D.C.
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The Fall FastTrac Training Series begins
August 25 in Memphis. Click the link below to
register or call 901-312-9797.
Register Now
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Does alt.Consulting really make a
difference?
We are committed to making a difference. Cynthia
Norwood, an Attorney and MBA in Memphis, joined
the alt team in 2004 and this year she became the
Managing Director for Memphis.
When asked 'why' she joined the team of
alt.Consulting, Cynthia said "I enjoy the one-on-one
business development and coaching. My experiences
are different each day and each day I feel like I make
a difference."
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alt.Consulting wishes to express a
special thank you
to Molly Chappell, who designed and developed our
new website.
Thank You!
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