Women Entrepreneurs:

The Foundation and Future of American Enterprise

BY JULIE R. WEEKS & ANN MARIE ALMEIDA

lthough interest in women's entrepreneurship is relatively recent, women were in business here before our nation was even founded.

In 1777, Mary Katharine Goddard printed the first copy of the Declaration of Independence. Born into a family of colonial printers, she became a respected Revolutionary War newspaper publisher and businesswoman.

In 1859, Martha Coston patented the Pyrotechnic Night Signal (night flare), which gave naval superiority to the North in the Civil War. The U.S. Coast Guard and the Lifesaving Service used her night flares into the mid-20th Century.

In the late 1800s, Madam C.J. Walker created a hair-care and beauty empire that brought economic opportunity to black women. Born in poverty to former slaves in Louisiana, Walker became one of the first to use licensed sales agents and organize them into a national network.

Each of these women, and many more, played a vital role in shaping America's economy, proving that women can be - and are - highly successful and competitive business owners.

These women faced many challenges and frequently struggled from a lack of support from family and community. They were ultimately successful, however, and their triumphs helped pave the way for the phenomenal growth of women business owners that is occurring today.

The number of women-owned businesses continues to grow at twice the rate of all U.S. firms, and women-owned firms are increasing in economic clout.

Today, there are 6.2 million U.S. firms that are majority owned by women. These firms account for 28 percent of businesses in the United States, employ 9.2 million workers, and generate $1.2 trillion in revenues.

Yet, in spite of this growing visibility and demonstrated vitality, support for American women business owners is a fairly recent phenomenon. Only over the past decade have several forces come together to form what some may call a "movement," but what is actually a loose collaboration of public and private sector efforts to support women-owned enterprises.

The Rise of the Women's Business Center Program
The seeds that gave rise to this groundswell of women's entrepreneurial activity were planted in the mid to late 1970s and were marked by a number of concurrent events, including: the women's movement for equal rights in the late 1960s and early 1970s; the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 (which forbade credit discrimination on the basis of gender); the formation of the National Association of Women Business Owners in 1975; and the expansion of government business census programs to include an analysis of gender (which occurred first in the 1977 census).

As a direct result of lobbying efforts by women business owners, the first federal government programs to assist women's business enterprises were created in 1979.

Due to the tremendous efforts of these women, the Office of Women's Business Ownership within the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was established, and, in 1988, the U.S. Congress passed the Women's Business Ownership Act.

These initiatives drove the creation and evolution of many current federal government programs that still assist women across the country every day in starting and growing their businesses. These federal programs provide critical information, training and technical assistance on a variety of topics, including financing, procurement and certification, and accessing international markets, as well as many others.

In particular, the Women's Business Center program has proven tremendously successful.

Started in 1988, the SBA's Office of Women's Business Ownership (OWBO) created the foundation for a national network of women's business centers by supplying pilot funding to a handful of pioneering women's business centers, nonprofit organizations that were offering technical assistance and loans to women seeking to start small businesses. Over the past 15 years, this program has expanded to include more than 80 women's business centers in 48 states, and it has helped to fuel the phenomenal growth in the women's business sector.

The program has grown to the point where today, it is a $12.5 million annual operation. Over the past five years alone, the program's budget has tripled, and the number of clients served each year has increased 10-fold in that time.

This public-private partnership has been an enormous success for all involved, and the trends continue to show strong growth in women's business ownership, fueling demand for yet more services.

How These Centers Serve Our Needs
From rural states to inner cities, small business creation often provides the best source for economic growth, providing jobs, tax revenues, and economic self-sufficiency where large businesses cannot, or do not.

Small business is the source of tomorrow's large employers, providing a proving ground for companies that will eventually grow to scale and become larger players in the regional or national economy.

The small business sector of the United States is strong in ways that are the envy of many other nations - including the strength of women's participation in entrepreneurship. The Women's Business Center program is helping women to meet some of the challenges that are still common to women in their pursuit of small business ownership. Here's how:

1. Women's Business Centers respond to local demand and are grounded in local communities. Women's Business Centers are community-based organizations that obtain matching funds from local banks, foundations, corporations, and individuals and are thus inherently invested in, and supported by, relationships within the local community. Women's Business Centers leverage government dollars with investments from local supporters. The Centers act as magnets and conveners for local businesspeople and community leaders, particularly women, who serve as mentors, serve on boards, teach classes, host programs, and otherwise lend their support. It is important to note that Women's Business Centers also are supported in part by their own clients.
2. Women's Business Centers are flexible, community-based, and able to respond to the needs of a particular client. While all Women's Business Centers offer "hard" business skills and training, they also recognize that mentoring, networking, working with peers, and having access to role models of successful businesswomen are often as important as learning the elements of a business plan. The educational and technical assistance offered to emerging women business owners are coordinated with the demands of family, thereby encouraging the woman entrepreneur to invest in her venture alongside her existing commitments. Many of the clients visit their Center repeatedly and stay in touch over time, using the relationship as a "home base" from which to facilitate business growth.
3. Women's Business Centers are staffed by employees and volunteers who understand the conditions and the opportunities available to women who are launching and growing businesses. Women's Business Center clients tend to be younger, multicultural, interested in up-to-date technological literacy, and interested in networking with peers who can serve as role models and connectors.
4. Women's Business Center staffs are sensitive to issues of class and culture; many programs throughout the United States are offered to serve "underserved" populations, including Latinas, immigrant women, and African-American women. Professionals are well versed in the financial and practical issues that are particular to women who have the primary responsibility for childrearing, women who have been divorced, women who are working in "pink collar" industries, such as childcare, and women who have histories of domestic abuse. For a woman who is starting or growing a business, the practical financial planning necessary to get the business on stable ground often involves one or more of these personal issues. WBC staff also are familiar with the real challenges that confront women in non-traditional industries, women seeking financing, and women seeking large corporate contracts; they have spent time and effort developing ways to help women present themselves as well as possible and to surmount any discriminatory obstacles.
5. Women's Business Centers competently offer solutions to the portfolio of challenges and opportunities representative in the women's business owners sector. Many have developed micro-loan funds and/or have a network of community lenders that are a better fit for small and emerging businesses. Women's Business Centers staffers are familiar with the resources in the community, including the banks that have a good reputation for working with women, the networks of women working in non-traditional sectors, and the corporate contracting officers who are responsible for ensuring diversity in contracting-and they can make well-targeted referrals.

Each year, more than 100,000 clients benefit from the educational, training, technical assistance, mentoring, development, and financing opportunities provided by today's network of women's business centers, converting their business ideas into business plans and ventures.

The Women's Business Center Program stands as a strong example of how leveraging a relatively small amount of federal money can lead to a very large gain on Main Street.

To find out more about the program, and to find the women's business center nearest to you, visit the following Web sites:

• SBA Women's Business Ownership home page (www.sba.gov/womeninbusiness);
• SBA Online Women's Business Center (www.onlinewbc.gov); and
• Association of Women's Business Centers (www.awbc.biz).

JULIE R. WEEKS is the executive director of the National Women's Business Council; she can be contacted at 202-205-6828 (e-mail: julie.weeks@sba.gov). ANN MARIE ALMEIDA is president and CEO of the Association of Women's Business Centers; she can be contacted at 207-236-9753 (e-mail: ama@awbc.biz).