Our Mission

The UC Merced Central California SBDC Network provides entrepreneurs and small businesses with high quality education, consulting, support for innovation, access to information and tools necessary to build successful sustainable businesses.

Program History

On July 1, 2003 the University of California, Merced was awarded a grant by the U.S. Small Business Administration grant to support the growth of small business in the 15-county region of Central California. Our goal is to help aspiring entrepreneurs turn their ideas into businesses, to help small businesses expand and to provide the information small business owners need to make critical decisions.

The UC Merced SBDC Network Office provides vision, leadership and administrative oversight to our network of centers. The service center locations conduct business training workshops, one-on-one business counseling and technical assistance for loan packaging free of charge to small business owners and aspiring small business owners. SBDC assistance is tailored to the local community and the needs of individual clients. 

Small business is the engine of economic growth. There are currently over 22 million small businesses in America — and the number is growing rapidly, with over 800,000 started last year, alone. Small business accounts for 99% of all U.S. businesses. It employs 53% of the private work force and contributes over half of the nation's private gross domestic product.

The UC Merced SBDC Regional Network is a nationally accredited program and we continue to have a positive impact in our communities as demonstrated below.  

Economic Impact