Development and History of
the CORE FOUR® Business Planning Course
Presidential
Award
History
of the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund
The CORE FOUR®
Business Planning Course was developed in 1998 by
the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund as a culmination of
years of experience training individuals in starting
and growing their own small businesses.
The Northeast Entrepreneur Fund is an SBA Women's Business Center and an SBA Microlender Intermediary. We are a private, non-profit organization that provides training, consulting, and financing to small business owners in northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin.
The Northeast Entrepreneur
Fund has developed programs such as the CORE FOUR®
Business Planning Course based on customer needs.
Thousands of prospective and existing business owners
have come to us and asked the hard questions, made
the tough choices, and shared their lessons learned.
Bankers, venture capitalists, and other lenders have
offered feedback by critiquing the business plans
that were produced by students of the CORE FOUR®
Business Planning Course. In order to provide quality,
comprehensive business planning training, the Entrepreneur
Fund continues to enhance and customize its training
programs.
It took a decade to hone this
training curriculum to the four cores presented, and
the dedicated staff at the Northeast Entrepreneur
Fund is passionate about these cores. Entrepreneur
Fund staff are experienced and skilled in many areas,
and all are involved in some way in developing our
programs and curricula, coaching and counseling small
business owners, and making decisions on whether or
not to lend money. All of the Business Developers
and Trainers at the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund are
current or previous business owners.
The Northeast Entrepreneur Fund is currently partnering with several area community and technical colleges to help them create entrepreneurial campuses.
We are committed to being a
sustainable institution that can support long-term
economic solutions for our region. We will always
focus on building tools and strategies that support
entrepreneurship and that meet the needs of entrepreneurs
and small businesses. The Entrepreneur Fund seeks,
through its own actions and operations, to be a model
of excellence for the businesses it helps create and
for other organizations in America.
