In business, patience is a major virtue. For Ashley Rushing – therapist and owner of Evolve: A Behavioral Health Center – patience, a passion for helping people overcome addiction, and an assist from the Loudoun SBDC guided her on a years-long journey to opening her own practice.

As a licensed therapist specializing in substance dependence, Ashley’s plan for Evolve was an all-encompassing suite of mental health and medical assistance services to help those individuals evolve beyond their addictions and return to productive, normal lives.

“Addiction treatment is where I started my career, and I’ve had a passion for that population,” Ashley says. “Prior to the pandemic, there was an opioid epidemic, which is still quite frankly going on. [Before opening Evolve] I had already been working with that population, treating them, providing group therapy and recommendations for medication-assisted treatment.”

That passion fueled a years-long journey to launch Evolve, and it also led her to Eric Byrd Manager of the Loudoun SBDC. Those initial consultations, which began in 2018, inspired Ashley to streamline her ideas for the business and gave her direction on what she needed to eventually open a physical space for her center and offer the many interconnected services her patients would require.

As that dream for Evolve continued to take shape throughout 2018 and 2019, so too did Ashley’s foundations as a therapist and business owner. She grew her clientele through telehealth, and when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, demand for those virtual therapy services increased.

By June 2022, Ashley officially launched Evolve as a telehealth-based practice. By December 2022 she began accepting new patients. In 2023 she was ready to seek capital for her expansion into a physical location, prompting her to reconnect with the SBDC.

Eric and the Loudoun SBDC team connected Ashley with the Community Business Partnership Business Finance Center, which approved her for a $50,000 microloan. That supported her quest to consolidate her services “under one roof.”

“The SBDC was essentially a bridge between me and the Community Business Partnership (CPB),” Ashley says. “And by way of the SBDC, I was able to connect with CPB and look into the process of securing capital through them.”

The loan allowed Ashley to find office space that will soon serve as the new home of Evolve. She will continue to provide services for addiction counseling, couples counseling, mental health therapy services, perinatal and postpartum therapy, teen counseling and trauma counseling, and has hired two full-time clinicians to expand those services.

“It was a lengthy process, but I’m happy that I stuck with it,” Ashley says of the SBDC. “It’s a great option to have for small businesses that may need a more creative, more flexible way of obtaining capital to jump start or enhance their small business needs.”