FOR FUNDED BUSINESSES
Technical assistance that actually moves the business.
PluggedIn delivers technical assistance to borrowers, portfolio companies, and grantees on behalf of the institutions that fund them — CDFIs, banks, foundations, private equity sponsors, state agencies, and accelerator programs. Real implementation, not just coaching. Outcomes you can measure, document, and report.
YOUR PORTFOLIO, OUR DELIVERY
You fund small businesses. We help them succeed.
If you run a CDFI, manage a small-business lending portfolio at a bank, oversee grant programs at a foundation, support portfolio companies at a private equity firm, administer a state SSBCI program, or run an accelerator — your success depends on the businesses you fund actually growing. You've already invested in them. The question is what happens next.
Coaching helps. Workshops help. Office hours help. But borrowers and grantees usually need something more than help — they need someone to do the work alongside them. Implement the financial system. Build the security posture. Stand up the technology. Close the books. Pass the audit. Land the next contract.
That's what we do. We deliver technical assistance as actual implementation work, scoped to the businesses your portfolio supports, paid for by the institution that funds them.
INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS
The institutions we partner with.
CDFIs
We work with CDFI loan funds, credit unions, and venture funds to deliver pre- and post-loan technical assistance to your borrowers. Whether your funding comes through the CDFI Fund, foundation capital, bank CRA partnerships, or state programs, we deliver TA that lifts borrower outcomes and produces the impact data your funders want to see.
Banks Under CRA Obligations
We deliver small-business technical assistance on behalf of banks meeting Community Reinvestment Act commitments. Implementation-grade TA — financial systems, technology infrastructure, compliance readiness — can support CRA documentation when eligible under your bank’s program standards; final treatment remains with your compliance team.
Foundations and Philanthropic Funders
We deliver TA to foundation grantees in small-business development, economic mobility, entrepreneurship support, and impact investing portfolios. Outcomes-focused, reportable, and aligned with the metrics your program officers and trustees track.
Private Equity Sponsors
We support PE portfolio companies — particularly mid-market and lower-middle-market holdings — with operational, financial, and technology work tied to EBITDA improvement plans, operating discipline, reporting quality, and exit readiness. Engagements scoped to your value creation plan.
State and Federal Agencies
We deliver TA under state SSBCI programs, federal small-business support initiatives, and economic development agency contracts. Documentation, reporting, and program-level outcome tracking built into every engagement.
Accelerators and Incubator Networks
We support accelerator graduates and incubator alumni who need senior expertise after the cohort ends. Engagements often funded by the accelerator itself, by ecosystem partners, or co-funded with the founder.
OUR DIFFERENCE
Why our technical assistance produces different outcomes.
The technical assistance market is crowded. Most providers do one of three things — coaching, workshops, or generalist consulting. Each has a place. None of them is what we do. PluggedIn TA is implementation work — the same finance, technology, and strategy capabilities we deliver to enterprise and mid-market clients, scoped and priced for your borrowers and grantees.
Implementation, not coaching
Our TA engagements are scoped around implementation deliverables: systems configured, controls documented, reporting built, or readiness gaps closed. When a borrower needs a financial system, we implement it. When they need a cybersecurity baseline, we build it. When they need a clean cap table for the next funding round, we clean it. The deliverable is the work itself, not advice about the work.
Senior practitioners, scoped for the engagement
The same senior practitioners who serve our enterprise and mid-market clients deliver our TA work. Scoped to the size, complexity, and budget of your borrower portfolio — not diluted or junior-staffed. Borrowers get senior expertise they couldn't otherwise afford.
Modern delivery infrastructure, controlled cost.
Our modern delivery infrastructure lets us serve smaller engagements at price points that work for TA budgets — without compromising on the team depth involved. Borrowers and grantees get the productivity of our full toolkit applied to their specific situations. AI-free delivery is available when required by funder or program rules.
Outcome data your funders want to see
Each engagement can produce a structured outcome packet: baseline, committed deliverables, completed work, and measurable changes where available. Aggregation fields are mapped to your reporting framework — impact reporting, CRA documentation, foundation reports, or program-level outcome dashboards — during scoping.
Capital ecosystem, not just delivery
PluggedIn works across the capital ecosystem — with CDFIs, banks, foundations, PE sponsors, and growth-stage capital providers. When a borrower or grantee outgrows their current funding source and needs the next stage of capital, we know who to introduce.
ENGAGEMENT MODELS
Three ways institutions work with us.
Portfolio TA Contract
Annual contract. Per-borrower or per-engagement pricing.
We become a TA delivery partner for your institution. You refer borrowers, grantees, or portfolio companies into our engagement intake. We scope each engagement individually, deliver the work, and report outcomes back to you on a cadence that fits your reporting cycle.
Best for: CDFIs, banks under CRA, foundations with structured grant portfolios, state agencies, and PE sponsors with multiple portfolio companies.
Discuss this model →Program-Specific TA
Single program, defined cohort, fixed scope.
We design and deliver TA for a specific program — an SSBCI cohort, a foundation initiative, a CRA-funded small business program, an accelerator graduating class. Engagement scoped to the cohort, outcomes documented at the program level.
Best for: State agencies running SSBCI or similar programs, foundations launching new initiatives, accelerators wanting post-cohort support, banks running named CRA programs.
Discuss this model →Co-Funded Engagements
Cost shared between institution and borrower.
Some engagements work best when the borrower has skin in the game. We support co-funded models where the institution covers a portion (often 50–80%) and the borrower covers the rest. Increases borrower commitment, extends institutional dollars further, and aligns incentives across all three parties.
Best for: Foundations with sustainability goals, CDFIs serving more financially capable borrowers, accelerators with paying alumni, PE sponsors using portfolio company budgets.
Discuss this model →SCOPE OF WORK
The work, when it matters.
Our TA capability spans the same disciplines that serve our other clients — finance, technology, and strategy. For borrowers and grantees, that integration matters. Most small businesses don't have a single neat problem; they have several connected ones. We can move across them in a single engagement, with the same senior team holding the work.
Finance Implementation
Bookkeeping setup and cleanup. QuickBooks or NetSuite implementation. Financial reporting build-out. Cash flow modeling. Cap table cleanup. Audit prep. Loan covenant compliance. SBA or grant reporting infrastructure. Tax-readiness work.
Technology Implementation
Core technology stack setup. Cybersecurity baseline (essential controls, secure access, data protection). Compliance posture (SOC 2, HIPAA, industry-specific). Cloud infrastructure. CRM and operations platforms. AI tooling adoption when it fits the business.
Strategy and Operating Model
Business strategy refinement. Operating model design. Pricing analysis. Market entry decisions. Competitive positioning. Go-to-market design. The strategic work that turns a funded business into a fundable business at the next stage.
REPORTING THAT FITS
Built for your reporting, not just your borrowers.
Institutional funders need outcome data. Foundations need impact reports. Banks need CRA documentation. State agencies need program-level evidence. CDFIs need to show their funders the difference their capital made. PE sponsors need to track value creation per engagement.
Every TA engagement we deliver produces structured outcome documentation:
- Pre-engagement baseline— current state captured before work begins
- Engagement scope and deliverables— what was committed, what was delivered
- Post-engagement state— measurable change, where it's measurable
- Borrower or grantee narrative— qualitative evidence of impact
- Program-level rollups— aggregated data for your institutional reporting
The format adapts to your reporting cadence and metrics framework. We've worked with CDFI Fund reporting, foundation logic models, CRA documentation standards, SSBCI metrics, and PE value creation tracking.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What institutional funders ask us most.
- How does pricing work for our portfolio?
- It depends on the model. Portfolio TA contracts are typically priced per engagement with volume bands. Program-specific TA is priced as a defined program scope. Co-funded engagements split between institution and borrower. We scope every contract individually based on portfolio size, average engagement complexity, and reporting requirements.
- Can you serve borrowers in multiple states or geographies?
- Yes. We work nationally. For institutions with regional footprints, we structure engagements to match. For multi-state programs, we deliver consistent service across jurisdictions while honoring state-specific compliance differences.
- Do you serve businesses below a certain size?
- We work with businesses across a wide range — from solo founders to mid-market companies. The smallest engagements typically focus on a single discrete deliverable (a financial system, a security baseline, a specific compliance step) rather than full advisory partnerships. We scope to what the business actually needs and what your TA budget supports.
- Are you registered to deliver TA under federal programs?
- We work with institutional partners who are registered providers under federal programs (CDFI Fund, SBA, SSBCI, others). Our engagements are typically structured through those institutional registrations rather than direct federal contracts. If your program requires direct provider registration, we can discuss the path.
- How do you handle confidentiality across your portfolio?
- Each engagement is treated as confidential client work. Borrower information is not shared across engagements. Outcome data is aggregated for institutional reporting in ways that match your reporting standards — typically de-identified or aggregated unless your reporting framework requires named outcomes.
- Can we bring you in for a single complex situation rather than a portfolio contract?
- Yes. Many institutional partners start with a single complex borrower or grantee, see how the engagement runs, and then expand to portfolio-level relationships. We're happy to start with one.
- What if our funder requires AI-free delivery?
- We offer fully human delivery on request. Some institutional partners and their funders specify AI-free delivery in their TA contracts, particularly for sensitive populations or regulated programs. We can match that posture. See our AI Principles for how that works.
- Do you take equity in borrower companies?
- No. We deliver TA on a cash-fee basis, paid by the institutional partner or co-funded with the borrower. Equity arrangements complicate the relationship, distort incentives, and don't fit the TA model.
Let's talk about your portfolio.
Whether you're funding a single complex borrower or running a multi-million-dollar TA program, we'll tell you within one conversation whether we're the right partner — and how we'd structure the work if we are.
Or read our AI Principles to see how we handle data and delivery posture for your borrowers.