The Capital Area District Library (CADL) just launched a competition designed to help small businesses get off the ground.
The Spark Your Future competition is open to all small businesses that meet basic criteria.
Business owners will attend a series of workshops and, when they’re finished, write a business plan. The business plans will be reviewed by a panel of judges and the business owner who creates the best plan will get 
$8,000 in start up services and $2,000 in cash.
The program will start with a panel discussion from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 7. The Spark Your Future winner and runner-up contestant will be announced in June.
The Spark Your Future competition is based on a program that was started by the Brooklyn Public Library in New York.
“We really wanted to create something to allow the businesses to get what they need to get started,” says CADL's business librarian, Elizabeth Kudwa. “I would expect interest to be pretty high.”
The Entrepreneur Institute of Mid-Michigan and the Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center are also Spark Your Future partners.
For more information, click here.
Source: Erin Davis, CADL
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie
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