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Grants ‘spark’ local improvement efforts

JANESVILLE — The Janesville Foundation announced it will boost local community-improvement this month with $9,000 in start-up funding.

The foundation invited everyone and anyone last summer to submit ideas to its new Sparks Grant program. The foundation received about 50 ideas and chose three, said Diane Brown, foundation administrator.

The winners are:

-- Satellite Innovation and Entrepreneurial Center—This was announced earlier, a collaboration between the private business-promotion association Forward Janesville and UW-Whitewater. The small-business development center is open in the offices of Forward Janesville, staffed by UW-Whitewater. It offers a variety of services to prospective entrepreneurs and small businesses. It can help with market surveys, workforce training and managing a start-up.

“We want as many clients as possible to tap into that resource,” said Forward Janesville President John Beckord.

Beckord noted that the federal definition of “small business” is any business with less than 500 employees, so it’s not just startups that could benefit.

The center also can help with mergers and acquisitions, business planning, finding new markets, finding partners that can manufacture parts, and helping obtain government contracts.

-- Office Space for Volunteer-run Nonprofits—The Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin is the organization that will run this effort. Office space will be provided for small, nonprofit organizations, most run by volunteers, that need a place to store files, hold meetings and use office equipment.

“We really need to be focusing on those kinds of groups because they’re the first to be hurt when the economy is in the situation that it is now,” Brown said.

-- Janesville Emerging Industries Business Park—As described in a companion article in today’s Janesville Gazette, this is an exploration of a possible business park, possibly in collaboration with UW System campuses.

Each effort will receive a $3,000 grant to help develop the idea. The money will be disbursed this month.

Brown said the foundation will keep the other ideas it received on file, because you never know when those ideas might be right for development. The foundation also is accepting new Sparks Grant ideas at its Web site, http://janesvillefoundation.org.

There is no deadline for submitting ideas. The foundation will award new grants—maximum $3,000—when it believes the time is right, Brown said.