Chamber’s Economic Development Arm Closes Out a Successful Year

The Chamber’s economic development affiliate, the North Central Massachusetts Development Corporation (NCMDC), completed its fiscal year on September 30, 2020. The NCMDC works in partnership with local banks, credit unions, chambers of commerce and area nonprofits to support emerging microenterprises, small businesses, and community projects in North Central Massachusetts with loans and technical assistance.  The NCMDC provided a total of 47 loans in FY2020 totaling $1,130,401. These included 31 conventional microloans totaling $852,500 and 16 loans under the SBA’s Payroll Protection Program for $277,901. The average size of the loans was $24,051 with the smallest loan at $2,607 and the largest at $54,177. Our conventional microloans were leveraged by another $495,626 in financing from local banks and credit unions and $188,249 in equity from borrowers, and helped retain 169 jobs and create 22 new jobs.  Our PPP loans helped retain another 47 jobs by covering critical payroll and operating expenses to businesses adversely affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic.  During the year, the NCMDC also provided over 1,200 hours of direct technical assistance to start-up and existing small businesses and hosted several successful workshops and forums in partnership with the Chamber. The NCMDC also launched an Economic Recovery Fund to provide emergency loans with $415,000 in contributions and secured grant funding from the state and the Mass Growth Capital Corporation to assist with its efforts to provide technical assistance to small businesses.  The NCMDC is certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury under the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) program and is a micro-loan intermediary for the U.S. Small Business Administration. For more information on the North Central Massachusetts Development Corporation, please visit www.choosenorthcentral.com.