Welcome Business Owners and Aspiring Business Owners to NWI BizHub. Regardless of the size of your business or where you are on the spectrum of business ownership or start-up, NWI BizHub was designed to help you grow your business and be successful.
We have recruited a number of Northwest Indiana partners who are available to provide valuable resources for your business development. An online form enables you to select the type of information you want and you will be directed to the organizations that address your specific needs. We will continually add more resources as we identify the unanswered questions from our entrepreneurs. Additionally, our resource partners and even some of our regional businesses will be posting blogs about their services and business activities. And, we will have a calendar of trainings and events that will be regularly updated. So please check those out…most of them are no cost or low cost to attend.
We believe in the importance of equitable opportunity for all prospective and current business owners and NWI BizHub provides that access. We look forward to working with you and hearing from you.
Who are we: NWI BizHub was the product of an extensive design process developed by a number of Northwest Indiana organizations. Legacy Foundation – Lake County’s Community Foundation, Crown Point Community Foundation and Unity Foundation of LaPorte County provided start up financial support for Lake and La Porte counties. The Center of Workforce Innovations donated additional funds to include Porter County. We, along with the Small Business Development Center and the South Shore Neighborhood Development Corporation, are members of the NWI BizHub management team.
How this developed: Legacy Foundation has previous experience with community engagement through its three-year On the Table Lake County conversation initiative. The need for small business support/workforce development was identified as an area of need by 3,600 residents who participated in these conversations. During that time, the NWI Forum launched a strategic plan, Ignite the Region. That plan had a number of “pillars” on which regional attention would be focused, one of which was entrepreneurship and innovation. Legacy Foundation, Crown Point Community Foundation and Unity Foundation have been active members on Ignite the Region committees from its beginning.
The three community foundations were simultaneously awarded a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to identify an issue of importance in their respective counties and develop a plan to address it. The foundations decided to work collaboratively on a regional focus for greater impact. Combining resident input from On the Table with the Ignite the Region strategic plan, entrepreneurship and small business development became the issue that the three community foundations decided to tackle.
NWI BizHub is the first of several projects which Legacy Foundation, Crown Point Community Foundation and Unity Foundation will be supporting. Our overall goal is to encourage an ecosystem that supports all entrepreneurs to become major players in our innovation economy.
Carolyn Saxton
President, Legacy Foundation
219-736-1880 | [email protected]
