Hennepin County Housing and Economic Development launched two business loan funds in February, responding to reports that disadvantaged businesses have been going through a difficult time getting loans approved. The loans are part of the Elevate Hennepin initiative, which the county launched in 2020 to help local entrepreneurs and small businesses via no-cost advising and resources.

The county has supplied the loans, worth $4.2 million, to NextStage, a Bloomington-based nonprofit tasked with managing and authorizing loans to help eligible businesses meet their needs, from maintaining leases to buying new products.

Through Sept. 30, NextStage approved the distribution of $1.1 million of the funds toward 12 projects—eight Small Business Loans and four Commercial Property Ownership Funds, says Lee Hall, CEO of NextStage.

“We are tracking to ensure that [NextStage is] complying with the type of businesses that we’re looking to serve,” says Lily Shaw, the county’s economic development manager. “We’re seeing deals closed with this monthly, and it’s exciting.”

Businesses with fewer than 100 employees, located within Hennepin County, and with a demonstrated need for credit support are eligible for the loans. Of the approximately 40,000 businesses in the county, 96% have fewer than 100 employees, according to Shaw. “That’s really where we see the ability for creating the most impact to help those smaller businesses,” she says.

While the loans don’t require a strict credit score minimum, Hall says the underwriting takes into account other “intangible factors, such as a client’s work history, industry experience, thoroughness of business planning, and other support quality to give a full weighing of the relative strengths and risks of the loan request.”

The Small Business Loan may reach a maximum of $50,000, and the Commercial Property Fund can go up to $350,000, with a match requirement. Hall says the amounts differ with each project. Once the borrower has decided how much they need, with guidance from NextStage, the following step is to figure out the best option to secure funds.

“NextStage has committed to administer the program on behalf of the county for 10 years,” says Hall. “We will continue to make loans until all program funds are disbursed and then recycle and relend those funds under the same program terms as they are repaid by program borrowers.”

Elevate Hennepin

The loans are an expansion of Elevate Hennepin, a program born in 2020 out of a desire to address the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the local economy. “Businesses were struggling. There was civil unrest,” Shaw notes.

The county assembled a group of business owners who volunteered to participate on an advisory board. They concluded they needed one singular place to access resources, consultants, and peer-to-peer cohort learning—with no barriers to entry and no cost.

“One of the things that became apparent during Covid-19 is that small-business owners have traditionally had some challenges of not having access to resources that other larger organizations with more funds do,” Shaw says. “So, there is a failure rate.”

Since its kickoff, Elevate Hennepin has served more than 4,800 businesses, provided more than 49,000 hours of support, and has hosted 400 cohort graduates and 460 workshop participants, Shaw says.

Since 2023, Elevate has helped launch more than 260 businesses from one-to-one advising, with nearly 900 jobs created, she adds. Of the 45 cities in the county, the program has serviced 37, and 19 have invested in Elevate either financially or by spreading the word.

All the program’s $3 million budget goes toward services, Shaw notes—the tax dollars come from the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. But prior to last year, the program was part of pandemic-response funding.

The broader goal of the program, Shaw says, is to create an equitable ecosystem for entrepreneurs and a diverse and inclusive network. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of small businesses and entrepreneurs,” she says. “They’re the lifeblood of the economy.”

Thirty-four local advisors—small-business owners from a range of sectors—are currently contracted to conduct personal advising. That’s one of the core components of Elevate Hennepin, Shaw says. Businesses that sign up for advising can get up to 25 hours total with one advisor, but Shaw says the county has observed an average of 13 hours from past sessions.

“Each of the advisors are contracted for very specific things that they can support,” but advisors convene in mandatory meetings so they can get to know each other, says Shaw. “We’re building a community ecosystem of astonishing support infrastructure with our advisors.”

Advisors are categorized into 10 areas they can help with: access to capital, accounting, business strategy, certification, financial management, human resources, idea stage, legal, marketing, and technology. To guide applicants to the appropriate advisor, the county added a business navigator, Ixchel McKinnie, to the staff, who is available for a 15-minute consultation meeting on weekdays.

“It’s really interesting the way people tap in,” Shaw says. Some need considerable counseling in one area, while others may need slight redirection in many areas. Marketing is an area of consultation that has seen high demand, and Shaw says the county plans to add more marketing resources in 2026.

Cohort programs

A major ingredient of Elevate Hennepin is the cohort system. Free of cost, it is supervised by “local facilitators with vetted curriculum.” At the moment, there are six types of cohort programs. Aimed at entrepreneur participants, the programs include, from least to most established: CEO Start Bootcamp, CEO Start, CEO Now, HR Next, Certified Access, and CEO Next.

Ashlee Olds, founder of Sweet Science Ice Cream, graduated from CEO Now last year and is close to wrapping up her ongoing HR Next cohort. She says the best part of the cohort programs was meeting other businesses of similar wavelengths and bouncing ideas around with them.

“Everyone has the same problems. It just looks a little bit different within different industries,” Olds says. 

The winner of the 2025 MN Cup, AcQumen Medical, has history with the program, as well. While the company has a product now—a type of pediatric monitor to address gaps in care—co-founder and CEO Dori Jones says her team did not always have clarity on how they wanted to position the company. In the company’s early stages, Elevate Hennepin’s one-to-one advising helped Jones with market research, social media, and messaging.

“The resources from Elevate Hennepin were super helpful because there’s a lot of things to navigate as a startup, and you don’t always know what you don’t know,” Jones says.

“It’s amazing that this resource exists,” Olds says. “Hennepin County is really ahead of the game, realizing that most people are employed by small businesses. If you’re able to help small businesses, it just helps the economy and all the people that work there, which are local usually.”