Entrepreneurship & Nonprofits
Starting your own business or nonprofit is hard work, but we can help you locate the tools you need to get your ideas off the ground.
Questions? Please contact our Workforce Development team at workforce@lexpublib.org.
Dear Lexington Entrepreneur:
Congratulations on starting and managing your business! It is exciting to develop a passion into a forward-facing business. We, at the Lexington Public Library, are here to support your business endeavors with online resources, traditional reading materials, training opportunities, and other entrepreneurial-focused events. To start, we’ve included some resources from our partner, Grow with Google. We hope that these brief one-sheet tips will help increase your marketing and sales. These tips are easy to implement and will help your business enhance its online and storefront footprint.
Remember - you can always visit us at our six (6) locations to:
- Obtain or renew your free library card
- Pick up a small business book or other business-related resource
- Create marketing products in our Makerspace at Eastside Branch Library
- Produce promotional content at our Digital Studio at Northside Branch Library
Our online virtual branch is available 24/7 at www.lexpublib.org where you can access learning databases such as: Business Source, LinkedIn Learning, or Small Business Reference Center with your library card. The online Libby App offers eBooks and audiobooks, and the Flipster App provides magazines, such as: Forbes, Inc., Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Money
For additional resources, be sure to check our calendar of events for monthly online business seminars. Please follow us on social media:
Resource Links:
These services can be accessed for free with your library card. Book a Librarian for a quick, one-on-one tutorial.
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Small Business Reference Center
Up to date information on topics from starting a company, operations management, and sales to growing or rescuing a business. Provided by the Kentucky Virtual Library.
Download the LinkedIn Learning app!
(Note: To log into the mobile app, enter lex for your Library ID. You will be prompted to enter your library card number and PIN.)
Lexington Public Library is a Candid Funding Information Network partner. These resources have been carefully selected to aid your 501(c)(3) in the grant seeking process.
Foundation Directory
Most exhaustive and up-to-date knowledge and insight on the social sector to fuel any fundraising mission. Expanded, in-depth profiles of each grantmaker plus inside looks at the grants they've actually made keep your organization operating at peak effectiveness. Available only to customers inside the Central Library.
Foundation Grants to Individuals
A database of nearly 10,000 foundations that support artists, students, researchers, and other individual grantseekers with grants, scholarships, fellowships, and more. Available only to customers inside the Central Library.
Candid Learning
Candid Learning is your destination for all of Candid’s live and on-demand trainings, webinars, and other resources designed to improve your fundraising, overall sustainability, grantmaking, and transparency.
These sites provide additional business-related information:
Commerce Lexington
Commerce Lexington Inc.'s economic focus centers on promoting entrepreneurial start-ups, business expansion and retention, and new job creation; advocacy; workforce development; connecting people and businesses; community, minority, and small business development; and the cultivation of local and regional leadership.
Kentucky Business One Stop Portal
From starting your business plan to registering your business with the Commonwealth, this portal is a "one stop shop" with tools necessary to assist you in registering and operating your business in Kentucky.
Kentucky Small Business Development Center in Lexington
The Kentucky SBDC in Lexington provides one-on-one coaching at no cost to existing and potential entrepreneurs in Central Kentucky. The Kentucky SBDC in Lexington also meets the educational needs of the local small business community by offering a variety of low cost training programs taught by industry experts and qualified SBDC Consultants.
KY Innovation
KY Innovation targets resources to support startups, traditional small businesses and innovation-driven entrepreneurs across the business life-span with the aim of dramatically improving Kentucky’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and significantly increasing the number of new company startups annually.
Kickstarter
Kickstarter helps artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creators find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality. To date, tens of thousands of creative projects — big and small — have come to life with the support of the Kickstarter community.
SCORE
The Lexington Kentucky Chapter of SCORE is part of a national nonprofit association and a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. SCORE is volunteer based and provides free professional guidance and education through one-on-one face-to-face, telephone or email counseling to America's existing and emerging small businesses, entrepreneurs and start-ups.
Startup with Google
A collection of tools, best practices, and communities to help with your new startup, cultivated by the folks at Google.
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