Editorial

Now This Is a Sound Investment

We’re not at all sure how the nonprofit agency Common Capital intends to market its Community First Fund moving forward — to date, it has relied mostly on word of mouth — but we’re sure it could do a whole lot worse than letting Beverly Weeks become a designated spokesperson.

Indeed, the retired West Springfield High School librarian hits all the right notes and makes a truly compelling case as she discusses why she became involved with this endeavor (see story, page 6).

Weeks had become dismayed that one of her many investments was heavily involved with fossil fuels. She was looking for a different, more sustainable, and, well, more rewarding place to park some of her hard-earned money. After a lengthy search on the Internet, she found the Community First Fund.

Launched in late 2012, it invites area residents to invest in area small businesses — the startups and next-stage companies that often turn to Common Capital for help because they usually don’t qualify for traditional bank financing.

Weeks liked the terms of the loans — three years with 2% interest paid semiannually (much better than going CD rates and comparable to the return on a 10-year T-bill) — and really liked the fact that she would be helping a small-business owner, or perhaps two or three, get the money to move their enterprise forward.

“It’s rewarding to lend a helping hand — or a helping dollar, as the case may be,” she told BusinessWest.

Like we said, she would make a good pitchperson.

Not that Common Capital really needs one. We hope that this fund will essentially sell itself. The concept makes sense, and the timing is absolutely perfect.

The loan program is essentially risk-free (the loans are secured by Common Capital, which now has more than $3 million in net equity on its balance sheet), and it comes at a time when Baby Boomers are both coming into money — and looking for something to do with it — and approaching retirement.

And it also comes during a period of perhaps unprecedented entrepreneurial energy in the Western Mass. region.

Indeed, at all of the area’s many colleges, there is renewed emphasis on promoting and facilitating entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, groups and institutions ranging from Valley Venture Mentors to the Grinspoon Foundation to MassMutual are encouraging entrepreneurship and assisting companies with getting off the ground or to the next stage.

Eventually, such companies will need capital — to hire their first employee, or their second; to introduce a new product; to expand into a new market; to buy needed new equipment; or perhaps all of the above.

Common Capital has been there to assist such companies through a number of financing programs, and the Community First initiative will simply allow it to do more, because it will have more money to lend.

At the risk of sounding like one of those disclaimers at the end of an informational piece written by a certified financial planner, BusinessWest does not offer investment advice, nor does it recommend specific investments (there are experts who can do that).

But participation in the Community First Fund makes sense on a number of levels — from the relative safety of the investment to the return to the manner in which it will help fuel the entrepreneurship movement (OK, let’s call it that) taking place in this region.

What’s that word the experts use to describe such investments? That’s right, sound. That’s what this program is.

Just ask Beverly Weeks.