PART THREE – Whether you joined our entrepreneurial summer series at a bed & breakfast (week one) or a distillery (week two), you know that change is a constant in small business. As a result, adaptation is a key phase in the entrepreneurial life cycle. Nowhere is that more true than along the trails and rivers, where consumer tastes shift almost as surely as weather changes. Continue reading
PART ONE – Summer is make-or-break time for many of the small businesses in our towns, along the trails, and in the city’s most festive neighborhoods. This summer, many entrepreneurs are thinking big. For the next six weeks, The Progress Fund – which has helped 311 businesses over 21 years – is going to take you into the heat of an entrepreneurial summer. Continue reading
Gavin Archer and Dee Stephen, both trained archeologists and avid cyclists, wanted to create a business in Pennsylvania that incorporated the sport that they love. Continue reading
Pittsburgh natives, Paul Kletter and Mary Beth Karabinos, are opening South Side Traveler’s Rest, with help from The Progress Fund.
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Our Craft Beverage Fund supports budding local brewers, distillers and winemakers. Because we’re a nonprofit, we can give tastemakers extra help with uniquely designed terms to grow their boozy business. We can accept offbeat collateral like grapevines or bottle labels, and help beverage makers get more funding for better equipment or the freshest, more high-quality ingredients— so they can craft every sip. … Continue reading
The Allegheny Front dug into our impact along the trail towns— and the stories of the lives it changed. Like Rod Darby, who had a great idea, but hit a snag when banks “weren’t sure about this trail thing.” Guess what? We were. And that’s just 1 piece of a major movement along the Great Allegheny Passage. Check out the full … Continue reading
A biking-hiking trail like the Great Allegheny Passage is an economic development opportunity for the communities it passes through — but only if those towns capitalize on it. And, said David Kahley, president and CEO of the Greensburg-based Progress Fund, McKeesport hasn’t exploited the Great Allegheny Passage to its fullest potential. Continue reading
Topics Discussed: As bike trails are being built, everyone thinks it will boost economies in these communities, “but there aren’t cash registers on trails,” Kahley says. So how should Western Pennsylvania towns be capitalizing on bike trails? What are they doing right and wrong? How does the Progress Fund’s Trail Towns Program help? Continue reading
Spot-on.
“If you spend a lot of time trying to convince the naysayers, then you’ll waste a lot of time…” Continue reading
The Progress Fund will receive this year’s highest honors, the F. Otto Haas Award, from Preservation Pennsylvania at an awards ceremony in Harrisburg on October 12. Continue reading
