This is the last in a series of posts about the struggles and successes of a rural Oregon community. You can read all of the posts by Bill Mintiens here on the RIPPLE blog.

Maupin’s success with enterprise facilitation naturally leads to the conclusion that, for rural Oregon, this method should be embraced by more communities. And it has. Wallowa County Business Facilitation in Joseph and Baker City’s Enterprise Growth Initiative (BEGIN) are but two of the many programs successfully operating now in Oregon.

Unfortunately Wy’East RC&D’s (Resource Conservation & Development) enterprise facilitation program has stalled recently.

Funding is the biggest challenge. Initial funding was provided by USDA’s Rural Development program, Oregon Economic and Community Development, the City of Maupin, the Meyer Memorial Trust, Sherman County, and private donations. This funding primarily covered the expenses associated with the original enterprise facilitator, Greg Hohensee, who left the position in March 2010 to pursue other entrepreneurial challenges.

Dr. Ernesto Sirolli understands the overall challenges involved. “Enterprise facilitation is still considered a maverick type of economic development by government; it’s still done mostly top-down with a ‘if you build it they will come’ mentality. Enterprise facilitation is just the opposite; it comes from the bottom up.”

Sirolli added “There is no easy route to funding enterprise facilitation projects. In the last 25 years we’ve seen communities getting laws changed to acquire government funding (Kansas); or a committee going completely after private company funding like in South Dakota (42 private businesses contributing). The make-up of a committee will determine whether they go after private or public funding. If you don’t have political contacts, but you do have contacts with local businesses, you go the private funding route.”

“I was really delighted to see what happened in Central Oregon in the first two years of the program. Enterprise facilitation takes time. In the first year you’re helping people with no resources start a business. Then, after two years, you start to see people with resources coming forward because they see it has worked for others. The ball really starts to roll,” said Sirolli.

Although Wy’East’s Council is pursuing several funding sources at this time, the program’s future is uncertain.

Another challenge is the sheer size of the territory. With a “service area” that covered six counties - Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Jefferson, Deschutes, and Crook, Hohensee’s client interactions had to be spread out. “The enterprise facilitator covered a huge territory, it really spread him very thin, I believe he had 104 clients at one point which was way too many for one facilitator to handle,” said Maupin Mayor Denny Ross.

And then there’s controversy surrounding the on-site, one-on-one mentoring used by the Sirolli method versus traditional classroom instruction espoused by a potential funding partner.

“The one-on-one worked for us here on our farm; we probably would not have used enterprise facilitation if we had to go somewhere to a classroom.” Sitting in a classroom with other potential business owners, I don’t need to know how many pounds of flour it takes to make a pizza; I’d be wasting my time in a classroom listening to that. I had a farm to run,” said Bob Larsell, co-owner of the Seed to Table Farm.

Randy Bechtol, co-owner of the Maupin Market, agreed. “I don’t like the idea of classroom learning, people just don’t have time. I don’t think you’ll get the participation; you need that one-on-one, that give-and-take, to make this work going forward. And the other part that’s important is confidentiality; the resource board did a wonderful job of keeping things totally confidential, which was very important to us.”

Perhaps Rob Miles, Imperial River Company, summed up the classroom versus on-site issue best. “This is rural Oregon; a lot of business gets done in pubs and at people’s places of business. There are a lot of people who have great ideas, a lot of passion, but will never make it to a classroom. Education doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a classroom. Enterprise facilitation helps people who have the knowledge and passion about something – but don’t know how to put that together into a business. The classroom will miss many people, people who don’t realize they can tap into local professionals for advice and mentoring about their idea.”

Will enterprise facilitation continue to help passionate people develop new small businesses in the six counties of North Central and Central Oregon going forward? Only time and funding will tell.

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