Our Next Monthly Meeting will be held on TUESDAY, May 17th at 5:30 pm at KTAOS.  Until further notice, all of our Monthly Networking Events will be held at KTAOS on the third Tuesday of the Month.

Taos Entrepreneurial Network (TEN), an independent nonprofit organization of entrepreneurs and local community leaders that began as a 2004 project of the Sirolli Foundation spearheaded by the McCune Charitable Foundation.

TEN’s philosophy was adapted from the work of Ernesto Sirolli, an innovator in rural economic development. After seeing self-sufficient communities in Zambia pushed into unsustainable types of development by foreign-aid officials in the early 1970s, Sirolli tried a different approach: He tapped into the entrepreneurial spirit of rural residents by backing home-grown initiatives the locals needed and could support. His model has been duplicated in 250 communities around the globe, including Taos, New Mexico.

The core of Sirolli’s plan is “enterprise facilitation” a support system designed to help entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable ventures by helping them find the resources and learn the skills they need to produce, market and finance a product or service. TEN tailored the idea in Taos to fit local conditions including the employment of a trained “network facilitator” to focus simply on networking and let entrepreneurs choose how to reach their goals.

This network facilitator is pivotal to TEN’s complex web of relationships. The facilitator works with TEN’s executive board and the entrepreneurs who volunteer expertise and advice at monthly network meetings, and the facilitator is the liaison between entrepreneurs and the resources they need. TEN’s facilitator acts as a senior facilitator, coordinating the efforts of facilitators in Rio Arriba, San Miguel and Santa Fe counties.

At the monthly network meetings you can find people with the know-how and connections to help start and expand business–and be referred to small-business lenders for the money to do it.