Small businesses navigating traditional financing methods can find difficulty bridging the gap between the early stages and the capital available to well-established companies. A Community Supported Enterprise (CSE) offers a new avenue. It’s a relatively young model for business financing, consisting of a community of individuals–both local and virtual–who pledge support to a company by pre-buying a package of goods directly from the company.

Active and diverse CSEs will enable the business’s founders and consumers to work together to bring an early stage company to financial sustainability. TrueBody is based out of Vermont, the leading state for CSEs. Check out the website for TrueBody’s CSE initiative.

The CSE model is based upon the concept and design of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. CSAs bring together a community of individuals who pledge support to a farming operation by signing up to receive a weekly delivery of farm products, providing the farmer with capital and the CSA members with shares of food throughout the growing season. A CSE will give individuals the opportunity to establish a similar relationship with a growing business.

TrueBody Products is testing their new social platform by offering their own CSE membership. Founder Janice Shade hopes that her company will find success through the CSE model, and inspire other small businesses to take advantage of this community-based financing method. Read an interview with Janice Shade about CSEs.

"'Bridge' loans do not exist in the world of small business, and I knew that if TrueBody needed this kind of financial support, others must too. Developing a way for interested individuals to come together to support small businesses like mine just made good sense," Shade said.

Watch this video with Janice to learn more about TrueBody’s CSE launch.