Alternative Lending: Empowering Entrepreneurs with Community Futures, with Corinne McGirr

It's Time for Success: The Business Insights Podcast

In this episode, Sharon dives into the transformative impact of Community Futures, a nationwide program supporting rural Canadian entrepreneurs since 1989. Her guest, Corinne McGirr—General Manager at Community Futures Lloydminster & Region—explains how the organization goes beyond traditional banking with developmental lending that considers factors like capacity, character, and community impact alongside credit and collateral.

Community Futures Lloydminster serves local businesses from inception to expansion, offering vital resources such as the Expert on Demand program for customized expert advice and Digi Futures, an online learning platform. Highlighting inspiring success stories, including a thriving female-led trucking company and a retail store that provides health benefits to employees, Corinne emphasizes the program's unique ability to empower entrepreneurs and foster community growth.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into Community Futures' application process, the importance of a strong business plan and market research, and the organization's collaborative efforts with regional partners like Startup Lloydminster. Corinne encourages entrepreneurs to explore these resources, especially if traditional banks have turned them away, and underscores the value of mentorship, coaching, and ongoing support. This episode is a powerful reminder of the role entrepreneurs play in building stronger, more resilient communities.

About Corinne McGirr

Corinne McGirr is a dedicated advocate for rural entrepreneurs and a key leader at Community Futures Lloydminster. Since 1989, Community Futures has supported small businesses across Canada with tailored guidance, developmental lending, and strategic resources.

Known for her creativity and problem-solving skills, Corinne fosters growth and sustainability by addressing the unique needs of the Lloydminster region and surrounding communities. Through strong partnerships with organizations like Startup Lloydminster, Alberta Innovates, and the East Central Alberta Regional Innovation Network, she ensures businesses at all stages have access to critical support.

Corinne’s expertise in rural entrepreneurship, innovative lending, and community-driven solutions continues to empower business owners to succeed and make a lasting impact.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Startup Lloydminster
• East Central Alberta Regional Innovation Network
• Alberta Innovates
• BDC
• DigiFutures

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Contact Sharon DeKoning | It's Time Promotions:

• Website: itpromo.ca
• LinkedIn: Sharon DeKoning
• Facebook: It’s Time Promotions
• Google: It’s Time Promotions
  
  

Contact Corinne McGirr | Community Futures:

• Website: lloydminsterandregion.albertacf.com
• LinkedIn: CorinneMcGirr
  
  

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Transcript:
Sharon DeKoning: [00:00:16] Thank you for joining us for It's Time For Success: Business Insights Podcast. Today we get to meet with Corinne McGirr from Community Futures, and I think we got a lot of insight coming down our pipeline here. As a business owner, Corinne, I'm really excited to meet with you. I didn't know about Community Futures, and I wish I'd known about it when I started this business almost 20 years ago. I needed help, and I have stories I can tell you. I like her little quote here, it says 'be bright, be creative'. I found that on your LinkedIn profile and I think that's very cool. Corinne is always looking for different angles and puzzling out how those pieces can fit together effectively. Please help me welcome Corinne to our podcast today. Corinne, we're going to talk about Community Futures, let's just jump right into it and tell us what Community Futures has to offer.

Corinne McGirr: [00:01:07] Sure. Community Futures is a nationwide program. We provide business and entrepreneurial supports to rural Canada. We were created back in the late 80s, we've been here in Lloydminster serving the region since 1989. We still get people wondering who we are, what we do, never heard of us, all those kinds of things. We're here as a nonprofit organization, and we're governed by a board of directors. That board of directors represents our communities and our entrepreneurs in our region, so that we can better serve entrepreneurs. We are federally funded, we bring the federal dollars to our community and our region for entrepreneurs to take advantage of. Our whole goal is to make sure that businesses get started on the right path. There is so much information out there, and it is virtually impossible to know where to start. Whether your business is just starting out, whether you're trying to grow or thrive, or even starting that discussion of shutting down the business. We can provide support, resources and tools throughout the whole entrepreneurial journey.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:02:31] What's different between you guys and a bank?

Corinne McGirr: [00:02:35] What we do is, we call it developmental lending. When you go to a financial institution, they're looking at the numbers and they're looking at returns for their stakeholders. Whereas our philosophy is that we're here to serve our communities. Through developmental lending, we're looking at more than just your credit score and how much collateral you have. We're considering your capacity, your character, the community impact that your business might have, as well as credit and collateral. We have the ability to take a little bit higher risk on those businesses that can't get lending through the traditional financial institutions out there. We pride ourselves on supporting what a community needs to grow. For example, if a retail store came to us in one of our communities, and there's already four of those retailers, it's not going to have that much impact on the community. We may be like, we're not really interested in that loan. However, if that business was to open up in a different community that had zero retailers and we knew that small business would hire two part time high school students and make a true impact on the growth of that community, we would maybe consider that more favorably for that community. We take that into consideration as well.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:04:06] I love it, I think I'm picking up what you're laying down. Back in the day, I believe that banks used to have that mindset. They did more so but now they're locked, so thank you for being there for us. If a company, like for myself, I see here you have 'growing a business', sometimes a business almost maxes and then they need help to get to that next level. I believe that is in business, you get stuck there and it's like, how in the heck do we get to that next level?

Corinne McGirr: [00:04:42] We can help with that whole growth mindset. Sometimes we think we want to grow, we think we're ready for the next level. We want to make sure that you are ready, that you'...