Economic and Community Development Institute, Inc.

ECDI's mission is to invest in people to create measurable and enduring social and economic change.

MCRC Programming: Since 2017, the MCRC program has served over 300 unique clients through capital access, training, or TA program services. ECDI has disbursed over $6 Million to MCRC clients, through the MCRC loan product and other leveraged funds.

Client, Jeanna Hondel owner of Ascension Construction Solutions. In conventionally male-dominated fields such as construction and engineering, you will not often encounter a 100% minority- and female-owned company.
Ascension Construction Solutions, founded by civil engineer, Jeanna Hondel, PE, CCM, LEED AP, MBA is the exception by design. Her team reflects company ownership, in terms of not being uniform. Diversity breeds innovation, she says. Bring people from different backgrounds together and you get more innovative ideas, and more inventive ways to solve problems.
Hondel started in the industry as a construction management director. When she was ready to make it on her own, a search for business resources led to the ECDI Women's Business Center (WBC). Having a workspace away from home was key. It was only me in the beginning, so I didn't have anyone to just bounce ideas off of. WBC staff were big proponents who could review proposals or look at plans with me.
Though she did not immediately need funding, she took the advice of an ECDI staffer, and was approved for a mobility loan through our Capital for Construction program, so she was ready to move when her first contract opportunity came up, with the City of Columbus.
Today, nearly a decade and many contracts later, you will find Ascension Construction Solutions leading the renovation of ECD's headquarters and business resource center campus.

Client, Denise Ransom, owner of Elite National Building Services
Construction runs in Denise Ransom's family. Her dad, Leon Ransom, was Columbus' first African American architect to work on major civic projects including libraries, hospitals, and fire stations.
She recalls sitting with him as he pored over blueprints. It inspired a lifelong love of the industry that served as a starting point for her own small business.
I did some market research and found there weren't any companies in Columbus that specialized in final construction clean up. It was an unfilled niche in commercial construction, she says. In 2017, she became the first entrepreneur in our then-new Capital for Construction program and gained access to the funding, training, and professional opportunities that got Elite National off the ground.
As of 2021, Elite National has established relationships with six of the eight general contractors Ransom targeted in her original business plan, which she developed with help from advisors at the ECDI Women's Business Center. My ECDI Relationship Manager, Jesse, has been my right arm. I can pick up the phone and he'll walk me through banking relationships, contracts or anything else, says Ransom. Without ECDI, I wouldn't be in the position that I'm in now and smiling. It would've been a lot of heartburn. ECDI helps me sleep at night, which is hard for a business owner to say.