AIEDF's Small Business Incubator

In 2004 the American Indian Economic Development Fund (AIEDF) formerly known as the Minnesota Indian Economic Development Fund) was awarded a CDFI grant from the United States Treasury.  One of the dreams of the AIEDF when applying for this grant was to develop a new resource that would allow us to assist American Indian entrepreneurs by building a small business “incubator”.  This incubator was to provide space for at least seven separate American Indian small businesses with below market rate rent and fully equipped office space with a shared receptionist, fax, copier, and conference room all utilities paid.  The incubator was to be housed in the same building on a different floor, and easily accessible for technical assistance, developmental services and consultation.

As with the upstairs renovation efforts included subbing out the work to American Indian skilled and unskilled workers (85% of work done on AIEDF remodel done by American Indian workers) all work on the incubator was to be completed by Indian craftspeople when possible.  In March of 2006 construction began on the incubator Lawrence Doe from the Easter Seal training program, along with his students came in and started the long task of framing the space into rooms, from this the vision was made real.  Next electricians came and began the work of getting light, electricity, phone and computer outlets ready. Day by day this space changes and grows into something knew for future Indian entrepreneurs.

As the creator knows all of life goes in a circle, and AIEDF has been allowed to see first hand that life continues to grow.  On the same day as the construction began on the incubator, another incubator was in the making.  One of the ducks from Como Lake decided that it was time to make a nest along side of our brick building.  Even with the noise and construction going on inside she found a small hole and began to make her nest.  Over the next few weeks our duck (we adopted her) would leave the nest during the morning hours and return to her nest every afternoon.  One day to our delight we saw her first egg, and from then on every one in the office watched her progress, until our duck had laid nine eggs. We all worried when she would leave the nest during the night and when our nerves were at the end we finally called a conservation officer at the DNR to see what we could expect from our mother-to-be.  The first topic of our Monday morning was to ask for a report on our duck.

With the end of the construction work in site, and the excitement of the future arrival of our clients in the new incubator we were surprised on a Monday morning when we could see that our duck seemed to be doing good but looking a little fatter.  We all took our turn to look at her when we noticed that weight had nothing to do with it, our little mother had something under her that was starting to move, to everyone’s amazement a little furry head stuck our from under our mother and by days end we could see at least six tiny ducks.  And like any new relatives we took many pictures of our mother and her little family by days end.

We all stood in awe when we thought of how ironic this was, here was the AIEDF creating a workspace that would help Indian entrepreneurs to grow and become self sufficient and at the same time this little duck was working toward creating a family and teaching them to become self sufficient and to leave the nest.

During the next few weeks we watched both the progress of our incubator space and the progress of our new family.  We were told the by the end of the week the construction part of the incubator space would be completed.  We looked forward to the completion with joy and sadness as we had developed friendships with the workers over their time here, but on the other hand it would be nice not to hear the sound of hammering and drilling during the day. 

On that Thursday we returned to work with great anticipation, the work was finally done.  Little did we know it would also bring a day of sadness also, for that morning when we returned to work to everyone’s surprise our mother duck had also completed her project and had taken her family and left the nest. To our amazement we saw that the duck had left two unhatched eggs behind.  She had hatched seven eggs and we had just completed construction of seven offices in our incubator. The connection to the seven is seen as as a good sign like the seven directions, seven generations, and the seven eagle feathers we have displayed in a window upstairs in our offices.  Nothing is by coincidence and we accept this as a sign from the creator that our American Indian Small Business Incubator will be a success if we give it the nourishment and time to grow.  Both our projects were completed and it was time for the next phase of our lives.

Sitting Bull said “Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children”.  On that day we realized that we are all children of the creator and through our efforts we must always remember the generations that will be following in our efforts.