NEW PHILADELPHIA (Tusco TV) - The Tuscarawas County Commissioners are showing their support for a resource helping local business startups. 

Commissioner Joe Sciarretti says they’re donating $3,000 on behalf of the county to the Small Business Development Center. He says the organization needs this money to leverage federal grant funding they can put toward helping aspiring entrepreneurs start up and grow small businesses. 

“Part of their funding formula for the year is a $10,000 grant that they get from the federal government, but they cannot get that unless the county government gives 30 percent so this is nothing new this year. We gave $3,000 last year and $3,000 the year before that,” he says.

SBDC Director Steve Schillig says the nonprofit offers a variety of free services including one-on-one business counseling and a monthly intro to business workshop.

"We have a business startup workshop, and that’s for anybody that comes in and says, ‘Hey, look. I want to be a business owner. I want to be an entrepreneur but I don’t know where to start,'" he says. "That’s kind of a screening process. They come, and we call them 'pre-venutures' because they don’t really have a business idea formulated. They’re kind of in that process."

Schilling says the center also offers free workshops on specific business topics like taxes, human resource issues, and accounting. 

"We’ve offered Quickbooks training, both desktop and online. Online is relatively new, and we had a regional accounting firm that sent a couple of clients there that wanted to get a better understanding of how to do Quickbooks online because it is a little bit different," he says.

The Small Business Development Center is hosted by Kent State Tuscarawas and serves a region that encompasses Tuscarawas, Coshocton, Carroll, Harrison, Holmes, Jefferson and Columbiana counties. Schillig says people can learn more about the center and its upcoming workshops by visiting their website, sbdcksut.org, or they can call him directly at 330-308-7479 to connect with individualized services. 

TUSCO TV