By Jacob Roushia - Aug 11, 2022
BELOIT
Rock County Jumpstart will be relocating its office in the next few months.
The office will be at 2080 Sutler Ave., Beloit, which was home to the old Allstate Insurance business. The new location is on the same strip mall as Caravel: Autism Health, Beloit DMV and Dollar Tree.
Rock County Jumpstart is a non-profit organization that helps local, minority-owned businesses get off the ground by providing skills training and resources.
Genia Stevens, founder of Rock County Jumpstart and supervisor for District 13 on the Rock County Board, is the executive director of the organization and is part of a small team bringing resources to businesses in need.
“Blackhawk Technical College donated a space to Rock County Jumpstart on their central campus right before the COVID pandemic started,” Stevens noted. “We had a dedicated office space and had access to a conference room or classroom space when we needed to teach a class or workshop.”
When COVID-19 hit and the stay-at-home order was declared, Jumpstart had to move locations. The organization has since been working out of Steven’s home office.
“We facilitated workshops via Zoom and provided far more one-on-one coaching using Zoom than we originally anticipated,” Stevens said. “With everything opening back up, we decided it was time to move into our own space. We chose to move our office to Beloit.”
Stevens and her team are slowly moving into space. The new location should be fully operational in mid-October, Stevens said.
“Rock County Jumpstart received a $1 million grant award from the Department of Administration in March,” Stevens noted. “This capacity building grant has made it possible to expand our services so we can develop additional programming.”
The new space will be about 1,700 square feet including a classroom, workstations and meeting rooms.
“Right now, we offer an accelerator program,” Stevens said. “Once we open, we’re adding an advanced accelerator, bringing us from one accelerator offering to two.”
The accelerator program along with the new technology will be free to access by all members of Rock County Jumpstart.
The memberships are a free program that people can register online. The membership and program are for local business owners.
“In addition, we’re finally launching the fully developed incubator that we had to put on hold because of the pandemic,” Stevens noted. “We’ll have 2 workstations that will allow us to provide Jumpstart members with access to computers, Wi-Fi, and a printing station.”
Stevens is hoping to create a community space for their members who can work on computers, come in for coffee and collaborate with their co-workers.
When the building is operational, members can come in any time.
Jumpstart is already looking towards the future with plans to open a second location.
“At this time, we’re considering a satellite office in Janesville,” Stevens said. “This could make in-person coaching and workshops more convenient for the business owners we serve in Rock County that are located in Evansville.”
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