Loans to smallest of business borrowers beginning a comeback

Microlending — the business of getting tiny loans out to entrepreneurs who need to buy a truck or a equipment for a one-man shop — is stirring back to life in northern Nevada.

Nevada Microenterprise Initiative, the pioneer microlender in the state, is back in the business after a year in which it stopped lending while it reorganized its board and management structure.

And Disabled Veterans Assistance Foundation USA, a nonprofit headquartered in Laguna Niguel, Calif., has launched a 50-state program to provide microloans to disabled veterans who are looking to launch or expand small businesses.

Nevada Microenterprise Initiative believes a large pool of potential borrowers may be waiting in the wings to make loan applications, says Lu Torres, its chief executive officer and president.

“We’ve got a lot of people in the pipeline,” Torres says.

The group makes loans up to $35,000 — most are smaller — to the smallest of businesses.

The potential market for those microloans is large.

Nevada Microenterprise Initiative estimates than more than 87 percent of the businesses in Nevada fall into the category of “microbusinesses,” those with five or fewer employees and requiring $35,000 or less in startup capital.

Borrowers can use microloans for startup costs, machinery, inventory, working capital and supplies. Most banks and traditional lending programs don’t want to bother with loans of only $5,000 or $10,000.

Just as important as the money, says Torres, is the training that Nevada Microenterprise Initiative provides to borrowers.

More classes are offered through the Women’s Business Center that’s housed with the initiative’s offices in Reno and Las Vegas. The initiative also hosts Nevada Moms In Business.

Nearly all start with an orientation class, and many continue with courses on feasibility studies, business planning and business foundations.

“We spend a lot of time with our clients,” Torres says. “We want people to have access to our training.”

The organization’s new underwriting standards help identify potential borrowers who can benefit from additional training.

Those standards apply three grades to loan applications — green light, red light and yellow light — and the organization works with yellow-light applicants to build the skills they need to become solid borrowers. Torres says the organization also is working hard these days to get out the word to bankers that it’s back in business after its hiatus to resolve issues that arose with the onset of the recession.

It continues to service a portfolio of about 130 loans that were made before the clouds of the recession rose on the horizon.

In the past year, the initiative has been building its reserve against loan losses and restructured its operation. The group headquartered in Las Vegas now operates a Reno office at 1301 Cordone, and longtime small business advocate Kathy Halbardier has joined the initiative’s staff as a program manager in northern Nevada.

Disabled Veterans Assistance Foundation USA, meanwhile, also is fielding requests for microloans in Nevada and elsewhere.

“We get many requests, far more than we can fill,” says Jerry Morris, the group’s director.

Most of its microloans run about $10,000, he says, and disabled veterans buy the equipment they need for small businesses such as landscaping firms.