More than 200 businesses or individuals benefited from the North Central Ohio SCORE in 2018, according to Neil Hamilton, the immediate past chair of the nonprofit organization.
The organization’s 27 volunteer mentors held a total of 217 meetings in 2018, some to guide entrepreneurs with their ideas and others to help existing businesses and nonprofits get to the next level.
“We have appointments every week — year in and year out, we’ve counseled over 200 nearly every year in recent years,” said Hamilton.
The North Central Ohio SCORE holds a mix of one-on-one meetings and workshops to benefit business owners and entrepreneurs in Ashland, Richland, Crawford, Knox, Marion, Morrow and Wyandot counties. The meetings are free of charge, and typically workshops have a low fee.
One volunteer and retiree, Merris Welge does it for “the satisfaction of helping someone start a business.”
“And I learn something new with every client I talk to,” he said.
He considers it his responsibility to give information to clients without telling them what to do.
“We never tell someone they have a crazy idea,” he said. “Instead we put information on the table for people to make an informed decision. We help them make a right decision, whether it’s to support the idea or not.”
Further, North Central Ohio SCORE recently received a silver award from SCORE National.
“That was a great accomplishment for the chapter as a whole. That was our goal and we achieved that goal,” Hamilton said.
The organization added more mentors with expertise in different areas to attain this award.
“It was a really good year, and we look forward to 2019 being a better year. We’re going for gold,” Hamilton said.
SCORE was founded in 1976 with the notion that retired individuals could help the Small Business Administration work with individuals. It was initially called Service Core of Retired Executives, but the name changed to SCORE, as the organization was opened to anyone with impressive business experience.
For more information, visit www.ncoscore.org or find the organization on Facebook.
