Sierra Business Council

Econcomic empowerment: Sierra Business councils small Business development center (sbdc) serves rural northeastern California with Business development and improvement services, including improving access to capital, linking to job training services, and counseling businesses on incorporating social and environmental values.in 2023, the Sierra small Business development center served 840 clients; provided 4,000 hours of counseling; conducted numerous workshops attended by more than 1500 individuals; participated in more than 40 new Business startups; retained or created 1,300 new jobs; and leveraged $38,000,000 in new capital investment in businesses in the region. The sbdc provided direct technical assistance to assist businesses with accessing numerous local and regional microgrant programs.sbc also infused $10 million in loans, grants, and other capital in the region and continued its own locally sourced community capital fund, the resilience fund, to provide microloans to small businesses.sbc continued to manage a revolving loan fund and expanded its first-time homebuyer down payment assistance fund. Sbc hosted the gold country broadband consortium, expanding access to broadband services in rural regions through direct technical assistance and leveraging state and federal funding for regional projects.sbc added a significant new program as the fiscal agent and convenor of the eastern Sierra regional California jobs first program, a program focused on elevating equity and climate forward based economic development goals and strategies in a 7 county sub-region of the Sierra.

Regional advocacy: Sierra Business Council acts as a regional policy and analysis voice for the Sierra Nevada, focusing on natural resource management policy, forest management and wildfire mitigation policy, biomass, bioenergy, and value-added wood product development, regional economic development policy, housing policy, climate policy, and broadband deployment. Sbc develops research and materials to help inform public debate and engagement. In 2023, sbc worked to include rural climate policy in California state priorities through the California state conservancies, the natural resources agency, the California air resources board, and the California department of conservation. Sbc partnered with numerous entities and coaltions to advance economic development policy, including the California stewardship network, California forward, and partnerships with more than 70 state and regional Business organizations.sbc worked with local and regional partners to develop a stratgey to expand access to housing for low to medium income Sierra residents.each of Sierra Business councils programmatic focal areas incorporate an educational and leadership development component in pursuit of its educational mission, augmented by continued leadership in the California economic summit, alliance of regional collaboratives for climate adaptation, California stewardship network, large landscape conservation network, state energy efficiency collaborative, local government sustainable energy coalition, rural smart growth task force, California delivers, Sierra climate adaptation and mitigation partnership, Sierra watershed improvement program, California bioenergy association; and ongoing regional convening.

Climate and energy: Sierra Business councils energy services projects work directly with Sierra businesses and local governments, linking sustainable economies to thriving communities through energy efficiency retrofits, greenhouse gas emission inventories, energy action plans, and climate action planning.in 2023, sbc worked with numerous communities developing greenhouse gas inventories, energy action plans, climate action plans, regional climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, and incorporating Sierra Nevada goals into state policies related to climate, water, and fire.sbc added a new climate program in 2023, the truckee tahoe building decarbonization pilot project, focused on accelerating builidng decarbonization efforts in the tahoe truckee region.sbc also hosted the climate transformation alliance and the Sierra climate adaptation and mitigation partnership.