Nicholas Vokhgelt describes himself as a “serial volunteer,” a characteristic he accepts happily.
“I actually connected with my wife through volunteering in Columbus, Ohio, before we moved here to Bloomington-Normal,” said Vokhgelt, who works remotely in his full-time job as Principal of Program Management for supply chain operations at Macy’s.
Vokhgelt is currently filling his urge to volunteer by serving as a mentor and workshop presenter through the Peoria chapter of SCORE, a national organization that offers guidance for small businesses that dates back to the 1960s.
“It fit really well with my background in business, and it gave me a really great opportunity to do something I’m passionate about, which is help local businesses succeed, give back to the community and really build local economies,” he said.
While the acronym SCORE originally stood for “Service Core of Retired Executives,” the organization shies away from that name now. Instead, the group focuses on how it can help small business owners find their path to success.
“SCORE mentors provide resources, including workshops, and connect individuals with resources online through the SCORE website,” said Vokhelt. “They also provide one-on-one mentoring, which is a professional relationship where we’ll help guide individuals seeking to start new businesses or that have businesses already founded and will help guide them and help them make the right choices for themselves.”
Vokhgelt is helping SCORE’s push to expand its presence in Bloomington-Normal after the local chapter was assimilated into the Peoria branch in 2018. At that time, around a half dozen volunteers transferred to the Peoria chapter, one of whom remains active.
“We acquired the Bloomington-Normal area to SCORE Peoria six or seven years ago, when the Bloomington chapter folded,” said Joanne Corbett, the Peoria chapter chair. “We have had a very difficult time developing a presence in Bloomington, so we’re really, really excited that we have a really energetic and enthusiastic volunteer in Nicholas.”
Funding concerns
But those efforts could be facing a major roadblock. Corbett, a retired technology business analyst, says SCORE Peoria gets less than $3,000 a year from the national organization that’s funded by approximately $17 million through the federal Small Business Administration.
“You’ve got a national organization to run. You buy national advertising, you have a computer system that supports all of us that is funded by the national organization. The chapters, being largely volunteer, have relatively small budgets,” said Corbett, noting that the proposed reconciliation bill currently before the U.S. Congress would wipe out the entire $17 million as of Oct. 1.
“It would be hard for us to go back to a situation where each chapter manually managed client requests, manually tracked to make sure that mentors were responding to client requests, etc. We could theoretically run independently for a while, but the national organization would grind to a halt pretty quickly if it were totally non-funded.”
Corbett says staffing challenges common to SCORE ultimately resulted in the inability to keep the Bloomington chapter running when it folded the first time.
“Volunteers come and go, and traditionally SCORE has been an older organization; it was originally retired people who founded it and staffed it. If a chapter has even a couple people, in a small chapter, leave the organization without being replaced, it can have a devastating effect,” she said.
“That’s what happened in Bloomington. So we ended up with SCORE Peoria acquiring a lot more territory to cover, and maybe four or five volunteers, most of whom were older, only a couple of whom were active. It’s just been very hard for us, since most of us are based in Peoria and have community contacts in Peoria, it’s been hard for us to foster awareness of SCORE in Bloomington.”
So how does SCORE work to assist burgeoning entrepreneurs?
“I would say what I provide, and what a mentor provides, is a connection to a network of resources,” said Vokhgelt. “The way we’re trained as a SCORE mentor is to, we call it ‘the Slate Method,’ where we’ll stop, listen, really try to connect and understand where people are at and then help bridge the gap to where they want to be.
“So what I can help provide is what I always like to say, an accountability buddy – help you to set your vision and help you get there.”
Corbett said financing and marketing are two of the biggest challenges for those looking to get a business started.
“You hear a lot of, ‘I’ve got this great idea,’ and we can help people figure out whether an idea can become a financially viable business. That’s a huge part of what we do,” she said. “We have a couple of mentors in our organization who are marketing geniuses. They can help people figure out how to find customers, how to figure out what their customers want.
“And again, financial analysis. We’ve got a couple of mentors who can look at a set of books and tell somebody these are the questions you ought to ask before you try to buy this business and think real hard about it.”
A challenging economy
Corbett said the current uncertain economic environment underscores the value of the services SCORE can offer.
“When times are tough, we get a lot more inquiries to SCORE, because people who don’t see they have any other logical path will sometimes start a business. Even though it’s difficult financial or economic times. starting a business is one way to try to deal with that,” said Corbett.
“I do think people are uncertain. It makes it really hard to do what we always recommend, which is: you should have at least a 12-month projection of how you think your financial situation is going to go before you get serious. [That’s] very hard to predict in a climate like this.”
Vokhgelt said that despite the existing conditions, he dispels the suggestion that business is in a holding pattern.
“There’s still people that are actively requesting assistance. We get requests every day into our through our national chapter,” said Vokhgelt. “So I would say, as long as we are here and willing to help, there are people that need the help. That’s why we do it, we’re volunteers looking to support the community.”
Corbett said SCORE Peoria has been trying to focus on starting things back up in Bloomington-Normal since 2022. She said SCORE continually seeks volunteers in both Peoria and Bloomington who are willing to commit the necessary time to be a mentor.
“If a person isn’t willing to devote 15 hours a month to the organization, it’s probably not viable,” she said. “Beyond that, we’ve got enough work to keep somebody as busy as they want to be.”
Beyond his passion for volunteering, Vokhgelt said the thought of helping people get their businesses off the ground drew him to SCORE.
“For me, it was an opportunity to hone my skills that I’ve learned through my education. In my career path, I have a certain set of skills that I use every day and those are related to business operations,” he said. “I’ve also taken classes and a wealth of knowledge on financial planning along with marketing. So this is a way that I can keep those skills fresh, keep learning, and a way for me to apply that to help people.”
Vokhgelt offers advice for those looking to launch a new business venture.
“Keep an open mind and don’t think that you know everything, because a lot of people learn the hard way [when] they go in with a level of confidence. Just be open to feedback and receptive, especially to customer feedback,” he said.
“I look at feedback as a gift, right? So even though you may not agree with the feedback, there is an element or something that you might do to improve to have a better customer experience the next time.”
