Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Michelle Zamora discovered the power of artisanal teas, sound therapy, lymphatic drainage and other wellness modalities during her own journey to disconnect from stressors.
Now, she’s bringing those tools to Las Vegas through The Essential Element, a wellness boutique that opened this year on Charleston Boulevard near Downtown.
The boutique aims to offer customers an opportunity to regroup and recenter. These modalities bring the nervous system into balance, which is the foundation of healing, she said. In addition to the tea bar, sound therapy and lymphatic drainage, Essential Element will soon feature a float room.
“Wanting to open a business is a leap of faith,” Zamora said. “A lot of people in their hearts have a dream, an idea, and I carried that dream in my mind and heart, and I just kept building it in my head as I continued getting familiar with wellness modalities.”
She had an idea, and the education and experience to make it a reality, but funding was her “biggest challenge,” Zamora said.
Then she connected with Prestamos CDFI, a Community Development Financial Institution and division of nonprofit Chicanos Por La Causa. In addition to lending, Prestamos has offered Zamora support in bookkeeping and on her website.
“It’s been really amazing,” she said. “ … There are all these components that can bottleneck a small business, and detract from the true purpose, which is the hands-on, right? I want to be hands on with the clients. And so, when you get this level of support from an agency like Prestamos, it does relieve a lot of those stressors.”
Zamora is one of countless entrepreneurs who have been impacted by Prestamos CDFI, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary.
Many small businesses run into the issue of being “not bankable,” or have trouble getting access to capital, whether that be because of personal credit issues or a lack of collateral, said Noe Gonzalez, business development officer for Prestamos CDFI in Nevada.
That’s when Prestamos CDFI enters the picture.
“One of the main things Prestamos CDFI does is to make bankable the non-bankable small business,” Gonzalez said. “Another positive thing that Prestamos does is that we provide technical assistance. At the end of the day, any small business owner, entrepreneur, with a lot of money but not knowledge, goes into a sort of hardship.”
Any small business that gets a loan from Prestamos CDFI is going to have free technical assistance in various areas, Gonzalez said. Dedicated business advisers provide services in finance and accounting, marketing and more.
Prestamos CDFI also offers free webinars and workshops to the public, he said.
Prestamos CDFI, like its parent organization Chicanos Por La Causa, started in Arizona. A quarter-century later, it operates also in Nevada, California, Texas and New Mexico.
The organization began making microloans to small business owners, Gonzalez said, and now provides everything from microloans for small businesses to aid for clients who need their own real estate to operate.
Prestamos tries to be a catalyst for wealth creation, job creation and retention in its communities, and to serve those communities in which economic development is needed, Gonzalez said.
“The vision for the next 25 years is to expand even more,” he said. “And I want to emphasize that we take very seriously our mission of empowering the underserved communities (in) which we operate.”
Gaming and hospitality is a huge swath of the Las Vegas valley’s economy, but the rest is small business — the taco shop where you get your breakfast burrito and coffee, the beauty salon and the small landscaping or manufacturing company, Gonzalez said.
“The importance of small businesses for the economy is that it’s probably one of the best ways to create economic mobility,” Gonzalez said. “It creates wealth.”
That’s not to say Prestamos CDFI doesn’t aid businesses that operate in or benefit from the tourism and hospitality sector, and Gonzalez emphasized that the organization is open to all businesses that fall in accordance with guidelines by the Small Business Administration.
“We are very diverse in our approach, and we are proud to have businesses in all the major economic sectors in our portfolio,” he said. “We are proud to help them, and we are here to keep helping for the next 25 years.”
Prestamos CDFI tries to foster, care for and cultivate the small business owner, and make sure they have the financial and technical resources to keep growing, Gonzalez said, because every time a small business folds, jobs are lost, landlords lose revenue and entrepreneurs need to start all over.
For example, he continued, many businesses survived the COVID-19 pandemic because they were able to pivot from traditional to digital marketing, because Prestamos made a great effort to provide technical assistance for them to do so and to ultimately save jobs.
Prestamos CDFI made Zamora feel like she had a team behind her as she built her business and is there anytime she needs to brainstorm, she said.
Her advice to people who have a dream is to connect with organizations like Prestamos and get educated, so they can avoid some of the mistakes or pitfalls of opening a business.
“Small businesses, in general, across America, they’re the backbone,” Zamora said. “It’s the mom-and-pop shops that contribute and make community.”
Small business owners may have a dream of the service they want to provide, Zamora said, but there’s so many aspects of running a business beyond that. And without the proper resources, training or support, those entrepreneurs risk failure.
“So organizations like Prestamos that offer a diversified level of support — from funding to bookkeeping to technical support and the many other services that they offer — is crucial,” she said. “I want to say that small businesses, I’m including myself, can survive and have a higher rate of success because of those type of organizations.”