Sharon Walker was paying too much. The owner of Yawaa’s African Market & Natural Products in Skokie, Walker has sold hand-blended lubricants, body butters and spritzers since late 1999. But after completing “homework” assigned by NU students helped her determine the costs of her inventories, Walker realized she paid more for her products’ jars than necessary.
“They really helped me focus,” Walker said. “I continued to learn something new about my business along the path of successfully completing the homework.”
Helping local businesses like Walker’s is the mission of Lending for Evanston and Northwestern Development, a student organization foundedin February 2010 with 11 members. LEND offers two programs, microloans and business training, which can be taken separately or together, said Sahil Mehta, a McCormick junior and LEND’s director of internal strategy.
“Everyone is unique,” Mehta said. “Every entrepreneur has their own needs.”
This week, LEND ended Invest Evanston, a two-week campaign raising awareness and funds for microloans. Though the program fell short of its funding goal, it successfully introduced the NU community to LEND’s mission, LEND Chief Financial Officer Andrea Marcos said.
“Basically what we wanted to do is launch out our name, our image and our mission so people knew us,” the Weinberg junior said. “It was more effective as a symbolic process of getting our mission out there.”
In addition to aiding Evanston entrepreneurs, LEND sought to engage NU students and improve town-gown relations with Invest Evanston.
“I think that many students, including myself freshman year, when you come to Northwestern, you’re just so involved with your student life that you have no idea how much you can help in this same community,” Marcos said. “We also want to improve the tensions that have developed throughout the years between Northwestern and the City of Evanston. We want to actually meet people in the community, not just stay in our comfort zone as students.”
Throughout Invest Evanston, LEND reached out to clubs for volunteers to help market the campaign on campus, gaining 10 student organization partners. LEND set up tables in Norris University Center and encouraged small donations of about $5.
“We were not so interested in the amount of donations but in the number of donations,” Marcos said. “One thousand donations of $5 from 1,000 students tells us a lot about those 1,000 people who believe in our mission.”
Although Marcos said LEND had hoped to raise $5,000 for Invest Evanston, she estimated the actual funds to be between $1,000 and $1,500. Nevertheless, she said she considers the campaign a success in recruiting more students to join the cause. Mehta also said LEND is still participating in Global Giving, an online fundraising campaign, and has raised an additional $2,200 so far.
LEND has started evaluating businesses that could benefit from the Invest Evanston money, including Polarity Ensemble Theater, a nonprofit theater company moving to Howard Street from Wicker Park, and the New Leaf Urban Garden’s farmers market, Marcos said. If selected, these businesses could undergo business training similar to Walker’s in addition to receiving loans. In this program, pairs of students meet with the owners to develop business plans in strategic workshops lasting eight weeks.
“Business training is a big aspect of what we do because we’re trying to get people the ability to empower themselves through entrepreneurship, through their own learning,” Mehta said. “Some things that are important like bookkeeping and accounting, which are the backbone of small businesses, people might not have training in. Even we don’t have formal training in them. We look to other things. We have access to faculty. We have access to books. It’s very easy for us to learn things here on campus.”
According to Walker, LEND is a valuable resource for the community.
“Smaller businesses such as myself get one-on-one training, help and research with students who are interested in helping play a positive role in the growth of businesses,” said Walker, Mehta’s first client. “I was able to sit down with these students and just really extract their knowledge.”
But Marcos said LEND aids entrepreneurs who already possess the potential for success.
“She hadn’t realized how much she could do for her business,” Marcos said of Walker. “We just gave her a structure, and she did everything.”
Mehta said he would like to make Invest Evanston a recurring initiative, possibly at a different time of year and with an emphasis on awareness rather than fundraising.
“I’d prefer to do that,” he said of an all-awareness campaign. “I think people would be a little more open to stopping at your table and talking to you because you’re not asking for something.”
