NOCAP
Big dreams need a strong foundation.
Growing a small business takes more than a big idea—it takes the right skills, systems and support. Through operational support and peer learning, the New Haven Opportunity and Capacity Building Acceleration Project (NOCAP) helps small to mid-size businesses strengthen their back-office capacity so they can grow sustainably and deepen their impact in the community.
ABOUT NOCAP
The Center for Inclusive Growth’s New Haven Opportunity and Capacity Building Acceleration Project (NOCAP) helps promising small to mid-sized New Haven businesses build the operational capacity to scale sustainably. NOCAP provides low- to no-cost back-office and operational support to project participants who face common barriers to scaling their businesses. For three months, they receive expert and capacity strengthening support, as well as opportunities for peer learning. Over the course of participation in NOCAP, each business develops systems and the skills and knowledge to use them, helping them to scale their businesses with confidence.
The Model
The Business Acquisition Collective
At the center of Evergreen is the business acquisition collective: a mission-governed entity that provides the shared infrastructure, capital access, and governance systems individual owner-operators need to acquire and sustain businesses - without going it alone. Equally important, the collective functions as an ongoing hub for its members: a source of continuous resources, expertise, peer knowledge, and operational support from experienced owners and operators already within the entity. Membership in Evergreen is not just about getting into a business - it is about belonging to a system that actively helps you optimize, grow, and lead once you are in.
The collective is neither a traditional cooperative nor a venture fund. It is a structured ownership system in which participants who acquire businesses become Shareholder Members of a shared entity that pools resources, enables coordinated deal-making, and protects the long-term stewardship mission through a layered governance architecture. No single capital partner, board member, or leader can redirect the mission - that protection is built into the structure itself, not assumed through goodwill.
In practice, individual operators hold majority ownership and full decision-making authority over the businesses they acquire, while the collective provides the capital stack, advisory bench, and governance framework that makes acquisition possible and durable. Each acquisition strengthens the whole - and over time, the system grows a self-reinforcing portfolio of locally owned, community-serving businesses anchored in New Haven.
AREAS OF SUPPORT
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Finance and Budgeting
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Human Resources
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Strategic Planning
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Marketing
Interested in Particpating?
Click the button and fill out the form
For additional questions, please email us: NOCAP@ignewhaven.org