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CARSON CITY, Nev., Oct. 30, 2023 – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Nevada State Director Lucas Ingvoldstad today announced that USDA is awarding $231,949 for a Rural Business Development Grant to StartUpNV, a Nevada-based incubator and accelerator for entrepreneurs in the state. This funding will help StartUpNV provide a ten-week incubator for rural and tribal entrepreneurs across Nevada, as well as visit over nine counties to share entrepreneurship resources with disadvantaged communities, including Lyon County, Mineral County, and Nye County, which are located within Nevada's Rural Partner Network (RPN) Community Networks.
“Economic development requires investing in our tribal and rural communities throughout the state,” said Ingvoldstad. “We’re excited to see projects like StartUpNV that will propel job creation and industry expansion throughout rural Nevada. The Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to ensuring rural entrepreneurs have access to the resources they need, and their successes are a testament to the creativity and capability of rural Nevadans.”
StartUpNV plans to introduce two entrepreneurship programs to the tribal and rural communities in Nevada to create entrepreneurs and enhance community economic and development activities: the Rural Roadshow (RR) and the Tribal Entrepreneurial Development Program (TED).
Tribal and rural entrepreneurs can often struggle with access to entrepreneurship resources and support due to vast and significant geographic distances in Nevada that isolate tribal and rural communities. The Rural Roadshow brings potential entrepreneurs and small businesses in rural locations together and provides access to entrepreneurial educational resources while the Tribal Entrepreneurial Development Program connects rural and tribal founders through a cohort style incubator over ten weeks. The program will support forty entrepreneurs in rural communities through the Rural Roadshow and at least twenty entrepreneurs within the Tribal Entrepreneurial Development Program.
Rural Business Development Grants are designed to provide technical assistance and training for small rural businesses. Small means that the business has fewer than 50 new workers and less than $1 million in gross revenue. Eligible applicants are rural public entities, including towns, state agencies, authorities, nonprofits, institutions of higher education, tribes, and cooperatives. Rural Business Development Grant money must be used for projects that benefit rural areas or towns outside the urbanized periphery of any city with a population of 50,000 or more. Check eligible areas. There is no maximum grant amount; however, smaller requests are given higher priority. Please visit the following link to learn more about Rural Business Development Grants.
To learn more about investment resources for rural Nevada, visit www.rd.usda.gov/nv. To learn more about REAP and eligibility requirements in Nevada, visit Frequently Asked Questions.
USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic opportunities, create jobs and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans in rural areas. This assistance supports infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural, tribal and high-poverty areas. For more information, visit www.rd.usda.gov.
To subscribe to USDA Rural Development updates, visit the GovDelivery subscriber page.
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