Why We Started

For more than 30 years, John Steffanic, Manager of the Plumas-Sierra County Fairgrounds, believed that revitalizing Plumas County’s economy would require strengthening local production and export — creating goods and services that bring new dollars into our region, rather than watching money continually flow out.

When COVID-19 and the wildfire disaster disrupted normal operations at the Fairgrounds, the Fairgrounds also became a major hub for emergency response activity. Through that experience, John saw the scale of economic disruption across the burn scar — and also saw that recovery funding was moving through the county. He recognized an opportunity to help turn that moment into practical support for local entrepreneurs.

Working with partners at the Plumas-Sierra County Fair Foundation and the Plumas-Sierra County Fair, John helped pursue startup support for a new economic development effort rooted in innovation: helping people take local resources, skills, and ideas — and turn them into viable, market-ready businesses. That vision helped launch the Indian Valley Innovation Hub (IVIH). At IVIH, rural innovation means helping entrepreneurs test ideas, improve products, and reach customers beyond their immediate community.

To begin, John hosted two community meetings in Greenville to gather local ideas and assess what resources could support new products and small-business opportunities in the burn-scar area. Community members identified possibilities like willow, fire-salvaged wood, and soil and growing resources — and there was strong interest in building something new from what we already have.

Our work in the Dixie Fire burn-scar area

Because the need was most urgent in disaster impacted communities, from 2022 to present IVIH has concentrated the vast majority of its efforts in this area. We began by supporting both hobbyists and inventors, established business owners and start-ups. Our product development team connected them with the resources they needed to grow their ideas — funding, spaces to operate, and on-demand workshops to help them navigate business challenges.

As our work expanded, we partnered with ChicoSTART, a North State entrepreneurial hub that provides workspace, programs, mentorship, and connections for startups and small businesses. We worked closely with Eva Shepherd-Nicoll, Executive Director of ChicoSTART, who brings deep regional wildfire-recovery experience — including lessons from the Camp Fire and her work supporting entrepreneurs through recovery efforts such as the Paradise Chamber’s RidgeStart initiative. This partnership is crucial because it helps bring a wider regional network of mentorship, technical assistance, and ecosystem connections to our disaster-impacted communities — including many resources that are far more common in larger markets and were not previously accessible within Plumas County.

After the disaster, it wasn’t only homes that were lost - the local economy was disrupted from every direction at once. Customers vanished, employees were displaced, supply chains broke, and power and internet were unreliable or nonexistent. The basic systems that make commerce possible became unstable overnight. Even businesses that survived physically had to operate in a new reality: fewer services, fewer trained workers, fewer visitors, and constant uncertainty. For many, simply staying open became an uphill battle through the maze of disaster response and recovery.

In that environment, IVIH’s work often looked like disaster case management for business owners. Many entrepreneurs weren’t ready for “traditional” business consulting — they needed immediate, practical help to stabilize, stay visible, and open their doors or keep them open while waiting for insurance checks, permits, contractors, and recovery funding.

What that support looked like…

We helped business owners problem-solve in real time, at the ground level and through advocacy at the administrative level including:

• Connecting businesses to gap funding while they waited on insurance and recovery reimbursements

• Securing temporary workspaces and pop-up locations in creative, makeshift settings

• Rebuilding essential business assets quickly: IVIH has created over 60 free logos, menus, flyers, signs, websites, and social media pages for it’s business clients in-house

• Updating Google Business Profiles, maps, and online listings so customers could find business clients’ new locations and hours

• Resurrecting defunct community social media pages and establishing ones that did not exist previously in the disaster impacted areas to share business updates, services, and local events. This helps drive customers to disaster impacted businesses.

• Advocating for disaster-impacted businesses in Plumas County Board of Supervisors meetings by establishing a regular agenda item for an update on Business & Economic Recovery and by scheduling updates to the BOS from disaster impacted businesses and the non-profits responding to the disaster

• Attending Long-Term Wildfire Recovery (LTWR) meetings -led by Plumas County Planning Department Director Tracey Ferguson

• Leading Plumas County’s LTWR Economic Committee meetings in order to advocate for economic recovery projects not only specific to the heavily impacted area but throughout the County

• Advocated for area small businesses at Dixie Fire Collaborative meetings through funds requests for several business and economic recovery projects including: temporary structures for businesses, down payment assistance

• Resurrection of the Chamber Coalition -in an effort to improve collaboration among Chambers of Commerce in Plumas County

• And more!

Meeting needs beyond “business as usual”

In the burn scar, the line between “business support” and “life logistics” disappeared. To help entrepreneurs keep operating, we also helped connect people to basics like:

• Free Public WiFi in Greenville to support business operations, remote work, and reliable customer communication. Click the link to see more about this initiative.

• Business equipment and supplies such as computers, printers, shelving, tools, -and a pick-up truck full of reclaimed wood for one local sign maker in-need. IVIH located donated items and connected owners to funding sources (including disaster-recovery grant programs).

• Grant and Loan application technical support by sharing current funding opportunities and helping business owners understand requirements and prepare materials. Through our close collaboration with the Sierra Small Business Development Center (Sierra SBDC) and IVIH Board Member Clint Koble who is an SBDC Business Advisor, we have supported disaster impacted businesses and the non-profits that support those businesses by helping connect them to funding sources such as:

  • Small Business Administration Loans

  • American Rescue Plan Act funds through the Plumas County Community Grant Program

  • CARES Act funds

  • Feather River Community fund

  • Dixie Fire Collaborative funds

    • Guidelines

    • Application

  • 2021 Dixie Fire Recovery For-Profit Businesses Economic Development Grant Program (click the previous link to connect to the Plumas County Planning Department webpage and scroll down on the page to find more information about this current and active funding source -or see links below for more information)

    • ELIGIBILITY MAP

    • JULY 22, 2024 PRESS RELEASE

    • GRANT INFO FLYER

    • AUGUST 19, 2024 PRESS RELEASE

• Office/Business Space Office & Business Space — After the disaster, many business owners and nonprofits needed new places to operate—often quickly and temporarily. IVIH helped entrepreneurs think through what type of space would work best, compare pricing across vendors, and avoid costly missteps by gathering quotes (including delivery fees and setup costs). We supported space decisions for everything from portables and trailers to storage containers, shared office space, vacant buildings, and other creative interim setups. We also assisted property owners and landlords by sharing local context, including typical commercial price-per-square-foot ranges in Plumas County, to support fair and realistic leasing decisions.

• Childcare & Pet Care -Childcare became a workforce bottleneck. After the disaster, Indian Valley lost two childcare facilities, and the remaining option faced a long waiting list. Many families also lost babysitters or relatives who had previously helped with childcare. That shortage made it difficult for parents to return to work — even when jobs were available. This challenge rippled beyond Indian Valley. While many local businesses were struggling, many residents still worked in Chester and the Quincy area, and some families ended up paying as much as $2,000 per month for out-of-town childcare in order to keep working. IVIH looked for solutions and learned that meaningful progress can be supported by county-level action. We requested that the Plumas County Planning Department consider incentives for childcare providers — especially within long-term recovery planning and guidelines for allocating disaster recovery funding — to help attract and support new daycare facilities in high-need communities. Regarding Pet Care, on several occasions IVIH board members have helped entrepreneurs problem-solve pet care — including the occasional pet-sitting support when recovery logistics got complicated.

• Local services and resources that made it possible to keep working

Listening first: 6 Months of Entrepreneur Rallies

We hosted Entrepreneur Rallies with a strategic purpose: to listen, assess the roadblocks community members were up against, and find ways to help them navigate the complex system of economic recovery. Participants shared their ideas for business and economic recovery on a large scale and also shared what they needed individually. IVIH responded connecting attendees with information, business resources, and free consultations to help them move beyond the roadblocks they faced -much of IVIH’s programming was developed as a result of these monthly community meetings.

Practical training: Business Skills Workshops

IVIH facilitated Business Skills Workshops to help entrepreneurs build real-world capacity, including:

• How to Write a Business Plan

• Bookkeeping 101

• Guerrilla Marketing

• What Lenders Want from Borrowers

• How to Bootstrap a Business

• And more

Building a support network

We also built a network of partner organizations — because we knew the business community needed more support than any single program could provide. We connected entrepreneurs to regional resources and specialized providers so they could access the right help at the right time.

Advocacy, coordination, and connections

As recovery efforts expanded, IVIH also:

• Advocated for local businesses with funders, including nonprofits and local, state, and federal recovery programs

• Provided updates to the Plumas County Board of Supervisors on conditions and needs in the most heavily impacted areas

• Offered product-development support for everyone from hobbyists to innovative inventors

• Connected entrepreneurs to regional partners, including ChicoSTART -the leading innovation hub in the North State and other business-support organizations

In the wake of the Dixie Fire, IVIH was not a typical business support organization. We became a practical, hands-on bridge between recovery reality and economic rebuilding — helping local businesses stabilize so they could then rebuild.

Lean Investment, Real Impact

IVIH delivered hands-on economic recovery support with a remarkably lean operating model. For two years, the program ran with one full time employee, supported by a dedicated board of directors who contributed significant volunteer time to keep services moving. During that period, the Executive Director compensation averaged $2,500–$3,000 per month, reflecting a commitment to stretching limited resources as far as possible.

Even with minimal staffing, IVIH helped business owners navigate recovery barriers, build visibility, develop products, access training, and connect to funding and support networks — demonstrating that small investments, paired with strong community commitment, can create meaningful economic impact.