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Bonita Springs resident Dick Schulze, founder of electronics giant Best Buy, is an entrepreneurial legend.
Now his foundation is helping some budding entrepreneurs who might not have the resources to start their own business. The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation recently gave $50,000 to the Microenterprise Institute at Goodwill Industries of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers.
The grant will help the institute fund 11 courses in 2016 that will teach business classes to budding entrepreneurs. Each course lasts 12 weeks and will be taught in Charlotte, Collier and Lee counties. “Last year we did our first one in Spanish,” says Dorothy Browning, Goodwill's community education program coordinator.
Once the students graduate from the course, the institute offers a loan program that can help fund their startup with as much as $5,000. For example, one culinary entrepreneur recently started a hot dog cart service.
The small loans are available for people who don't have the creditworthiness for a traditional bank loan. The Microenterprise Institute provides the collateral for the bank loans, and has done 14 loans so far.
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