CCCC Chatham Small Business Center receives arts business grant

By Katherine McDonald
Posted Thursday, November 29, 2007

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Pittsboro, NC – Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham Small Business Center has been awarded a $6,000 grant to expand and enhance small businesses involved in the arts.

The grant, from the North Carolina Community College System’s Small Business Center Network, provides full funding for “Artist Up and Away,” a program to support emerging artists in the Siler City area.

“Artist Up and Away” is a joint effort of the Chatham SBC and the NC Arts Incubator in Siler City. It will provide training and coaching in business skills for approximately 36 emerging artists to help them convert their hobby into a business.

The grant proposal was co-authored by Gary Kibler, director of the Chatham SBC, and by Carol Hewitt, art business consultant and co-owner of the W.M. Hewitt Pottery in Pittsboro.

“The Incubator is viewed by many as an important, potential engine of growth and vitality for Siler City,” said Kibler. “This compounds the importance of helping it and its tenants to become successful.” The training for the artists will include a series of 11 seminars on a variety of business topics, one-on-one sessions with a business counselor at the SBC, and biweekly group discussions among the artists, led by a facilitator, to build upon the newly developed skills and improve the chances of success of their art businesses.

“To be successful in their art career, even the most talented artist must not only create beautiful art, but also have the skills needed to run a thriving small business,” said Hewitt. “While most artists love producing art, they have received little or no training on how to effectively market their work and manage a business. By teaching these and other crucial small business skills, by providing ongoing coaching, and by facilitating communication and collaboration with other artists, this project can greatly increase the level of success of the participants in setting up and sustaining thriving art businesses.”

The Small Business Center Network provides grants to help strengthen the entrepreneurial base throughout the state. According to a 2004 Economic Impact Study conducted for the NC Arts Council, art is big business in North Carolina. It generates about $723 million in annual state revenues, $32 million in federal and state taxes, and employs about 6,700 full-time workers.

The “Artist Up and Away” grant was one of five Program Enhancement and two Innovative Project grants, totaling $40,000, approved for fiscal year 2007-08 at the NCCCS’s Nov. 16 board meeting in Raleigh. Twenty-one SBCs submitted grant applications totaling $132,729. Seven awardees, including the Chatham SBC, were selected from among them.

Other colleges receiving awards were:
Innovative Project – Brunswick Community College, $5,000 for “Marketing to Small Businesses,” and Wake Technical Community College, $5,000, for “Informed Business Decisions, A Strategic Alliance with SageWorks, Inc. and the NCCCS Small Business Center Network.”

Program Enhancement – Cleveland Community College, $1,500 for “Cleveland County Small Business & Small Industry: SBC’s Consultative Role”; Mitchell Community College, $10,000, for “Motorsports Industry Enhancement Project”; Southeastern Community College, $10,000, for “Hispanic Small Business Program”; and, Wayne Community College, $2,500, “Contract Support Training Program.”