In this episode of Breaking Down Barriers, host David Ponraj sits down with Erik Reader of Reader Area Development to celebrate National Small Business Week, Economic Development Week, and the 100th anniversary of the International Economic Development Council (IEDC).

Erik brings 15+ years of on-the-ground experience in community and economic development— from running a chamber/tourism hybrid organization and leading the Illinois Main Street statewide network, to working with CDFIs and SBA CDCs. He joins David to talk candidly about the state of small towns across America, what it really takes to bring a Main Street back to life, and why the human side of entrepreneurship matters more than any metric.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why remote work and post-COVID migration are reshaping small towns and creating new opportunities for communities under 50,000
• Whether brick-and-mortar businesses on Main Street can still thrive (spoiler: never say never)
• Erik's AREA framework—Assistance, Retention, Expansion, and Attraction—and why attraction should always come last
• David's addition to the model: Succession and why protecting existing businesses is more valuable than funding new ones
• What Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) is and why it may be the safest path into business ownership
• Real-world examples from Havana, Illinois and Geneva, Illinois on what deep community engagement can unlock
• Why the best downtowns lean into their quirks instead of copying what worked somewhere else
• The art of community storytelling—from placards and visitor guides to AR/VR preservation (like Dunedin's Kellogg Mansion)

Connect with Erik Reader:

• LinkedIn: Erik Reader
• Web: readerareadevelopment.com

What if the real problem with small business lending isn't the banks, but that nobody's actually built the system around the business owner?

In this conversation, David sits down with Charles Kollo, Head of Innovation at BBIF, a Florida-based CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution), for a candid conversation about why the $200 billion community lending ecosystem is ripe for disruption, why CDFIs have been slow to modernize, and what it will actually take to put capital access back in the hands of business owners.

Charles brings a rare global lens to the conversation: he's built a digital bank in Sub-Saharan Africa, worked with major banking groups across Côte d'Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and beyond, and now applies those lessons to the U.S. CDFI space.

In this episode:

• Why CDFIs were created (and why they've been slow to innovate)
• The outdated 1970s credit scoring system that's still running the show
• Why high interest rates from alternative lenders are essentially a "laziness fee" (and what accurate risk prediction could change)
• The real victim in the lending ecosystem: the small business owner
• What mobile money in Africa can teach us about capital deployment in the U.S.
• The three ingredients needed to actually solve this problem: clarity of thought, tools, and distribution
• Why EIC may be positioned to bridge the gap

Links & Resources:

• Rethinking Capital Access for Small Businesses with Charles Kollo
• Learn more about CDFIs: cdfi.org
• Learn more about BBIF: bbif.com

What does it actually take to build a pitch competition that changes lives and keeps founders in their hometown? In this episode, Molly King, VP of Clients at Economic Impact Catalyst, sits down with Cenzo Caronna and Shivang Thakor of STartUP Northshore to pull back the curtain on the Inspire Startup Slam, one of the Gulf South's largest pitch competitions, running out of a 100-year-old theater in Hammond, Louisiana.

Cenzo and Shiv share how they've built a $100K prize ecosystem (combining $50K in non-dilutive grant cash with in-kind services) serving a three-parish rural region north of New Orleans, and why the event they designed for "the person who got dragged there" has become the cornerstone of their startup ecosystem.

In this episode:

• How STartUP Northshore came together across St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, and Washington Parishes, and why trust-building in rural communities requires a boots-on-the-ground, not broadcast, approach
• The full founder journey: from the ID Institute 12-week accelerator → Launchpad ($5K competition) → Inspire Startup Slam ($50K)
• Why they scrapped winner-take-all after year one and what they changed
• The six judging criteria, including one most competitions miss: commitment to and potential impact for the North Shore
• How they built a $100K prize pool starting with their own money, a Chevron partnership, and a cold call from Capital One
• The pro tip that saved them $28,000 (hint: book a theater, not a conference room)
• Why in-kind services like accountants, marketing firms, and coworking space may matter more than the cash prize
• Leading vs. lagging indicators: why business formation is a "vanity metric" and what STartUP Northshore actually tracks
• Practical advice for other program managers: expect the unexpected, do non-scalable things, and text your founders

This year's winner didn't make the finals the previous year. He kept building with STartUP Northshore's support and came back to win the whole thing.

Guests:

• Cenzo Caronna, Executive Director, STartUP Northshore
• Shivang Thakor, Program Manager, STartUP Northshore

Host: Molly King, VP of Clients, Economic Impact Catalyst