Stephen Davis – C-VILLE Weekly

A leg up: The CIC helps entrepreneurs get the right start

Since 2012, locals wanting to start their own businesses have been turning to the Community Investment Collaborative for support. The CIC runs a training program to help folks develop their business ideas—its 16-week Entrepreneur Workshop has graduated more than 300 people so far. It also offers financing, mentorship, and co-working space. We chatted with Stephen Davis, CIC’s president, about the collaborative’s impact here in Charlottesville.

What kinds of things are covered in the entrepreneur workshop?

Number one is to help someone determine if a business idea, or existing business, is viable. Will it work for them? What are your goals and reasons for starting the business? The second piece is learning the basics of running the business. How do you think about marketing, sales, cash flow, hiring?

Who are the people who take the workshop?

A little over half of them have a business in the idea stage. A little under half have a business that already exists in some variety—some are very part-time, and others are a supplemental source of income. In a few cases they’re already full-time in the business and have gotten as far as they did by sheer hard work. They’re asking, “How do I stabilize this?”

Why is an organization like the CIC needed in Charlottesville?

Our mission is helping under-resourced entrepreneurs. Seventy-five percent of our clients have incomes below the median; two-thirds are women; over half are racial minorities. For each of those groups, they experience barriers beyond the normal ones. Our program is needed to give these groups access to business knowledge, education, and networks—you need to know the right people. We also provide access to capital through microloan funds. We are willing to take much more risk than a bank would.

What does the mentorship program offer to clients?

In general, we look for volunteer mentors who are interested in helping the person more than the business, because part of our work is about developing clients as people and entrepreneurs so they can make decisions as opposed to the mentor primarily giving advice. You take a client where they are, figure out what their goals are, and provide coaching and support.

What are some of the success stories that have come out of CIC?

There are a lot of them. Just opened up in Fifth Street Station is Mochiko Cville, which does Hawaiian food. It started with catering, then a food truck, and now has a small restaurant. He [owner Riki Tanabe] really utilized all the different parts of our program along the way. And High Tor Gear Exchange, which does outdoor gear consignment, we were able to help them with some financing and ongoing support.

Beyond the success of our businesses that come through the program, a big part of what we do is make our community stronger by bringing together people from different neighborhoods, backgrounds, education, and income levels. They all come through working on their dream, so they get to know each other well and make connections.

Still relevant?: WVPT and WHTJ public television stations merge, say declining revenues not a factor

For years, two out-of-town public television stations fought to claim status as Charlottesville’s “local” PBS station. Now they both can say that.

Harrisonburg’s WVPT is being consolidated into Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Corporation, the parent company of Richmond-based WHTJ, and the merger will offer local viewers two additional stations.

Instead of duplicate offerings of “Nova” or “Masterpiece Theater,” Charlottesville PBSers will have a counterprogramming channel, where they can watch “Masterpiece” on a night other than Sunday. And it’ll be harder than ever to get the children to sleep with a 24/7 PBS Kids station.

Both stations have seen declines in revenue in recent years. WVPT saw a total revenue drop of more than $1 million, according to its 2014 and 2015 990 tax forms. And WHTJ reported a nearly $400,000 revenue deficit in 2015.

That, says Commonwealth’s board chair Todd Stansbury, had little to do with the merger. While some PBS stations around the country are struggling to keep the lights on, he says, the two companies here “have been pretty healthy over prior years.”

He compares it to fixing the roof while the sun is shining rather than when it’s raining. The merger, he says, solves two problems in Charlottesville while expanding to nearly 1 million homes in central Virginia.

“It eliminates market confusion” about two independently owned public television stations in the same market that at times has even confused donors, says Stansbury. And by eliminating the overlap in programming, the spare station will offer alternatives.

“Charlottesville is going to get a very big bang for its buck out of this,” he enthuses.

Stansbury, who lives in Charlottesville, acknowledges that these are tougher times for PBS stations than back in the days when public television was one of four broadcast networks available.

The new entity wants to be a content creator delivering on broadband, which is how a lot of people now do their viewing, he says. “We still have a large part of our market receiving it over the air,” he says. The merger “will give us the resources we need while maintaining services for our legacy viewers.”

The idea of combining has been talked about for years, says Stansbury, but it helped that Stephen Davis, chair of WVPT’s Shenandoah Valley Educational Television Corporation board, also lives in Charlottesville.

Once the merger is complete in the spring, WVPT staffers will become employees of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting while it decides “the highest and best use of personnel and facilities,” says Stansbury.

Singer-songwriter Terri Allard is getting ready to premiere the 11th season of “Charlottesville Inside Out,” which she hosts and co-produces, as well as being WHTJ’s community engagement manager. She sees the union as a “win-win” for Charlottesville, giving viewers greater flexibility in “what they watch and when they watch it.”

Promises Allard, “it’s going to be twice as much fun.”