Members of the Montcalm Economic Alliance (MEA) and invited guests meet for the organization’s quarterly meeting Wednesday via Zoom. MEA President Rob Spohr reported that due to the coronavirus pandemic, fundraising efforts have stunted the organization’s ability to pull in funds, creating an anticipated hardship of continuing to pay The Right Place Inc. for its services. — DN Photo | Cory Smith
GREENVILLE — For the past five years, the Montcalm Economic Alliance (MEA) and The Right Place Inc. have partnered to support economic growth in Montcalm County and encourage regional collaboration.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, however, that partnership — which depends on payment to The Right Place for its services — is threatened.
Every year the MEA pays approximately $140,000 — about $35,000 paid once a quarter — to The Right Place, and in doing so, retains the services of Kathy Jo VanderLaan as a business development coordinator for Montcalm County.
During the MEA’s quarterly meeting Wednesday, held via Zoom, MEA President Rob Spohr delivered a sobering report.
“We have a grand total of $3,375.58 in the bank,” he said. “We’ve been talking to The Right Place about this, and basically, with what’s going on right now with COVID … a lot of our support that comes from public entities, we understand it’s not there right now.”
Spohr said the MEA’s fundraising efforts have been virtually nonexistent since the pandemic made its way to Michigan in March.
From January through June, the MEA received $27,025 through direct contributions from various municipalities, businesses individuals and other organizations throughout Montcalm County. Combined with $47,255.58 in previously saved net assets, the MEA was able to pay its total of $70,905 in total expenses over that period, but is now left with little remaining funds.
“Going out and raising funds in this climate is not easy. It’s hard to get in to see anybody and businesses are busy with other things and they’ve been shut down as well, so any ideas on how to raise money are welcome,” Spohr said.
As a result, Spohr said instead of paying The Right Place every quarter, the two parties have agreed to allow the MEA to now pay monthly. If funds don’t come forward, the partnership with The Right Place would end.
“We can still function as the MEA, but services from The Right Place are in jeopardy at this point,” Spohr said. “Obviously, this is not a good time to let this partnership go.”
According to Travis Alden, a director of business development with The Right Place who handles its rural economic development efforts, the organization is brainstorming ways to bring in additional funding.
“With this virus, we’ve all been thrown through a big loop — no business or organization has been immune to this since March. It’s really forced us to look at the ways that we do business,” he said. “That has meant businesses being innovative, reinventing themselves in certain ways, and we are no exception.”
Alden works directly with Montcalm, Ionia, Newaygo, Lake and Oceana counties.
“All five counties are in various situations financially and everybody is having this challenge with traditional methods of fundraising,” he said. “While there is no silver bullet in terms of a revenue generation standpoint, we at The Right Place are making sure that there are no stones left unturned — everything from advocacy for future stimulus dollars … to working on grant applications. Structurally, we’re also looking at what changes need to be made, could be made, in terms of long-term stability. It doesn’t do anybody any good to have a really great economic development program for just a handful of years.”
While finances are as tight as they’ve ever been, VanderLaan is hopeful future rounds of grant dollars for local businesses currently hurting due to the coronavirus will end up assisting the MEA as well.
Most recently, VanderLaan worked to administer grant funding from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC), in which $44,000 was provided to Montcalm County.
VanderLaan handled the applications of 101 area businesses that applied for those funds — seeking out more than $2 million in total — finalizing the requests down to a list of 11 businesses that received a portion of the $44,000 in funds.
“I was happy to do it, but it was very grueling with a ton of paperwork going through 101 applications with very little guidance,” she said.
VanderLaan said the MEA received no funding from the MEDC for her services as a grant administrator. She’s hopeful that with an upcoming second round of grants, that won’t be the case.
“Yesterday the Michigan Strategic Fund agreed to allow the MEDC to allow a second round of grants through the Michigan Business Restart Grant Program,” she said. “The good news is that we have been told, though we’re still awaiting some more guidance, that we’re going to be awarded 9.54 times what we got last time. Come July 15th, we are going to be applying for this.”
According to VanderLaan, that means Montcalm County will receive around $420,000 in funds to distribute to area businesses.
“This time they are allowing a 5% administration fee, so you can probably add about $20,000 to the (MEA) finances that we will receive for overseeing these grants,” she said. “We received nothing last time and really did the boatload of the work. So that’s a pretty good chunk of money for our organization and for the businesses in our county.”
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