During
the North American recession of the early 1990s the Niagara region was
especially hard hit with plant closures and corporate ‘downsizing’, leaving our
area with one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada. In turn, as a
response to the crisis, unprecedented partnerships were formed with the
private sector, governments at all levels, educators and community leaders.These collaborative efforts developed a new economic model to promote and foster entrepreneurial activity in the community, and out of this process the Niagara Enterprise Agency emerged in 1993.
NEA undertook a series of initiatives to help individual entrepreneurs and small-medium enterprises, including start-ups, some of which were more productive than others. Interestingly, despite the general economic climate, entrepreneurs and SMEs were finding niche markets but some lacked the capacity to secure the resources, including financing, to take advantage of these opportunities.
It was during this early period that NEA began to establish and nurture the many community partnerships that became the cornerstone of our approach to local business development. With the help of Industry Canada’s Canada Community Investment Program (CCIP) we began offering a one-stop shop providing comprehensive support services, focusing on access to growth capital, to the local business community.
By 1999 the Niagara Growth Fund was established, the first community-based and
community sponsored venture capital fund in Canada. The Fund, established with
5.5 million dollars invested by The Working Opportunities Fund, CIBC, BMO and
RBC, has a mandate to invest in small Niagara-based companies with high growth
potential (see section on the Niagara Growth Fund for further details). By early 2003, about ten years after we began operating, the Niagara Enterprise Agency, working with many community partners, had facilitated 35 million dollars in new growth financing for small and medium enterprises in Canada’s Niagara region.
From 2003 until 2006 our main focus of activity had been the re-emergence of what was once one of Niagara’s largest employers, the Fleet aerospace facility in Fort Erie, Ontario. From a maintenance staff level of three people in 2005 the workforce at Fleet Canada Inc. has grown to over 100 in the spring of 2007, and further growth is possible as the international market for fuel-efficient airplanes in the aerospace sector develops.
“None
of what we have achieved would have been possible without the ongoing support
and goodwill of our community partners” (Glenn Stansfield, former CEO of NEA,
October 6, 2006). While this was a reference to the rebirth of Fleet
specifically it could as easily apply to the whole history of the Niagara
Enterprise Agency. From the Agency’s inception it was clear that a small
not-for-profit organization could not make much impact on the local economy on
its own but could have a major role if it supplied niche services to the
small-medium enterprise sector and individual entrepreneurs with growth
potential---services which in turn leveraged assistance and investments from
many sources including the local business community, all three levels of
government, individual professionals, and other community development
organizations---and services which are difficult to access in smaller population
centers such as Niagara.