Women's Initiative: Where Dreams Become Thriving Businesses

Lynn Jimenez: Se Habla Dinero

The second week of February, Women's Initiative hosted a Latina Leadership Luncheon. Our keynote speaker was Lynn Jimenez of KGO Radio. We thought her speech was so great we wanted to share it with you!

Here's an excerpt:

Respect is something I had to earn when I became KGO radio’s business reporter. KGO 810 am, is a news and talk radio station. It’s been number one for more than 28 years. Every morning I give reports on the market, the cost of money, housing, jobs, local firms, and pocketbook issues.

When I used to listen to business reports, if I wasn’t bored—I was lost. I felt stupid. I didn’t understand the code words or how the reports applied to me. So when I took this job, I vowed I didn’t want anyone to feel bored or stupid when they listened to my reports. Which is why I go beyond the numbers.

So..every morning very early, I skid onto the options floor of the NYSE, go through wires, newspapers, faxes, the internet…touch bases with one or two of my experts, write my reports and then go on the air. You may think that’s a lot of effort for one minute of business news each half hour. But it’s critical to put facts into context and to write clearly. It’s also a tribute to KGO radio that it believes money news and local business news is important enough for that kind of investment.

... At some point, after 17 years as a business reporter I realized it was time to use what I had learned to invest in the future. And the numbers spoke to me. What numbers? Try these. There are 44 million Hispanics in the U.S.—more Hispanics live in the United States than Canadians live in Canada. We are the fastest growing ethnic group in the nation. Right now Latinos make up a third of California’s population, and by 2042 we will be the majority.

... There are more than 2 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. One third of them are owned by Latinas. The majority are one or two person operations, but the rest provide jobs to the economy. Those firms both buy products and services, and provide them. Corporate America will increasingly depend on Hispanics not only as consumers, but as workers.

The average age in the U.S. is 36.4 years. Among Latinos, it’s 27.4 years. That means as the Boomers leave the workforce, many of their replacements will be Latinos. ... Hispanic Boomers who are U.S.-born and speak primarily English use education to further themselves, while those who use both English and Spanish tend to further themselves by being entrepreneurial.

We are making lots of progress—but we would make more progress if we, as a community, were better educated and better educated financially. Even though we are 14 percent of the popuation, in 2002 the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute found just 7 percent of Hispanic students were enrolled at 4-year colleges. Just 12 percent of us have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 30 1/2 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

This is happening because the cost of an education rises faster than wages rise each year. It’s happening because Latino families may not have experience with applying for college, or with the financial aid process. Sallie Mae reports more than half of Latino high school graduates say they received no financial aid information before graduating.

And the relatively low percentage of us going onto higher education has a huge negative impact on our earning power. People without a college degree earn a million and a half dollars less over their lifetimes than college graduates …on average, the Pew Hispanic Center says Latino incomes are 2/3rds that of non-Hispanic white Americans.

You can download the complete speech by clicking on this link:

Download latina_luncheon_speech_jimenez.doc

Yunus' "Social Business"

Grameen Bank founder and microcredit guru Muhammad Yunus published an article in the Christian Science Monitor last week titled, "How Social Business Can Create A World Without Poverty."

The article lays out Yunus' ideas about "social business." The term might seem, at first glance, similar to what is described by the catchphrase popular in the US, "social entrepreneurship." But Yunus emphasizes that "social business" is not about profits; it only emulates the structures of profit-making businesses to become self-sustaining.

A social business is not a charity. It is a nonloss, nondividend company with a social objective. It aims to maximize the positive impact on society while earning enough to cover its costs, and, if possible, generate a surplus to help the business grow. The owner never intends to take any profit for himself.

... Traditional philanthropy and nonprofits generate a social gain, but they do not design their programs as self-sustaining business models. A charitable dollar can be used only once. A dollar invested in a self-sustaining social business is recycled endlessly.

A social business is designed to be both self-sustaining and to maximize social returns like patients treated, houses built, or health insurance extended to people who never had this coverage. An investor in a social business retains an ownership interest to hold management accountable and to get the investment back over time, but no dividends are expected, and any profits should be reinvested in the business or used to start new similar businesses.

I think this is a super-interesting discussion and falls in with the Pierre Omidyar philosophy of philanthropy. 

For example, one could say that the City of San Francisco gets its money back from the lease grants it offers through taxes the new businesses are paying. The same is true of Women's Initiative's loan program: the revolving loan fund puts payments back out into loans immediately.

But how would we begin to get our money back from Women's Initiative's training program?  Becoming partners in the client businesses?  How do you serve the very poor and become self-sustaining? 

At first sight it seems that the “social business” model is limited in who and what can be served.  This is a question that as time goes on would be important to resolve as more and more people are going to want to spend their philanthropy dollars where they can get them back.

--- Pemala Mejia, Women's Initiative Executive Projects Manager

Monday Linkblogging: Microcredit

• Here's a microfinance blog newly added to our blogroll (on the left, scroll down): Micro Capital: The Candid Voice for Microfinance Investment. The blog is basically a clearinghouse for other info sources.

• The Daily Star in Bangladesh reports that a new women entrepreneur's fund received only one application last year because no one knew about it.

“We need money badly,” Nahida Sharmin, owner of Shailpik, a Dhaka-based fashion and design house struggling to survive, told The Daily Star.

Frustrated Sharmin, who went to several banks for years for loans, said an instalment would cost Tk 27,000 if one borrows Tk 10 lakh from a bank. Moreover, the banks seek collateral, which she said remains 'a perpetual problem'.

“But nobody told us about the BB fund for women entrepreneurs,” Sharmin said.

• An opinion piece by Baik Ju-wang in The Korea Times lays out a few issues with microcredit programs in South Korea.

People often describe our history as a history of war: a war among people;a war against Mother Nature; a war against many. One of the most tragic legacies from these wars is the poverty and associated tragedy they have brought with and them for history. ... In Korean society, witnessing Grameen Bank's success, the microcredit lending has been an eye-catching social business for poverty reduction. Not only the private sector but also the government sector has shown its interest ...

However, there are also several concerns around these movements. Firstly, they point out that it will be difficult to apply a developing country case like Bangladesh to a developed country like Korea. From my study, I also found there are several important hidden agenda in the Grameen Bank's success that supported the microfinance industry, which the other countries might not have.

• The saintly Mohammed Yunus published an article in the Christian Science Monitor last week titled "How Social Business Can Create a World Without Poverty."

Traditional philanthropy and nonprofits generate a social gain, but they do not design their programs as self-sustaining business models. A charitable dollar can be used only once. A dollar invested in a self-sustaining social business is recycled endlessly.

A social business is designed to be both self-sustaining and to maximize social returns like patients treated, houses built, or health insurance extended to people who never had this coverage. An investor in a social business retains an ownership interest to hold management accountable and to get the investment back over time, but no dividends are expected, and any profits should be reinvested in the business or used to start new similar businesses.

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• The International Fund for Agricultural Development is launching a new program to offer better access to financial services, markets, technology, and information to mostly women-headed impoverished households in Inner Mongolia with limited access to microcredit.

The six-year project will promote greenhouse and organic crop production with links to markets and buyers, and it will also establish village development funds to pay for infrastructure and activities selected by local communities

• And finally, microfinance is so hip these days, that Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour has started an MFI named Birima, and is promoting it together with multi-culti-image-making Italian clothing company Benetton. The campaign's slogan will be "Africa Works," and, yes, the website features Benetton-esque photos of the program's clients in colorful togs, against white backdrops. No information on whether they are wearing Benetton clothes.

Friday Linkblogging: Women Entrepreneurs

• Online Athens has an article about the Athena Awards, honoring strong women leaders in business.

About 25 years ago, a successful Michigan business owner was invited to serve on the board of directors of her local chamber of commerce. Martha Mertz discovered that women had virtually no seats at the chamber's table. ... Stung by that realization, Mertz ... founded Athena International, the Chicago-based organization that provides support and encouragement to female business leaders, most visibly in the form of the Athena Award, given in more than 500 communities.

Click here for this year's nominees, and here for the awards' website.

• Utah's The Spectrum has an article about women business owners highlighting the trend of self-employment among Utah's working women:

Between 1997 and 2006, the number of privately held, majority (51 percent or more) women-owned firms in Utah increased by 47 percent, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Women's Business Research. From 1997 to 2004, Utah had the fastest growth rate in the nation for women-owned businesses.

• CBS 11 in Dallas/Fort Worth has an article about "mompreneurs":

Baby Einstein DVDs were created by one. So was a Dallas-based make-up giant. Stay-at-home moms are proving they can do more than raise children. Those who've done it say all you need is a good idea, great support and a little faith. Then you'll be well on your way to becoming a "mompreneur." ... Mompreneurs are beginning to flood the marketplace with new products and services. Patricia Cobe, coauthor of the book "Mompreneuers Online," estimates there are more than 10-million in the U.S.

• Lorissa at the All Things Girl blog has posted some resources for self-employed women, and especially for web designers.

If you are a woman business owner, freelancer or entrepreneur, don’t be shy to toot your own horn! Don’t be shy to say, “Hell yeah, I rock!”. Don’t be shy to let people know what you do. ... Yes, that’s right - spread the word about your work! Get heard! Get seen!

• Carol Davenport-Moncel posts about small-business in-house PR on Sarah Bashaw's blog:

Do small-business owners always have to rely on large PR agencies to get attention from the press? An entrepreneur recently asked me this question during a networking event for women business owners. Of course my answer was, "No," but not for the reasons one might expect.

Ultimately, I do believe the time comes when a company needs professional guidance from a PR agency -- be it a large or small one -- to secure media coverage. But I also believe that a really media savvy small-business owner, or a two-person marketing team can do a fantastic job in promoting an organization. Here s how I know it can work.

Read on for some good tips.

• And finally, check out this new blog called "Boutique Industry" by Ohio writer and shop owner Abby Kerr. She describes the blog thus:

A Boutique Industry speaks to creative women everywhere who have a desire to cultivate entrepreneurship within themselves, and particularly those drawn to shopkeeping. With the pathos and comedic timing of a screenwriter and the heart of a teacher, Abby shares the ups and downs, the joys and pratfalls, and the decisions and moments of destiny that go into starting and running a creative business of one’s own.

Maybe one for your bloglines!

Women's Initiative in the SF Chronicle

If it looks like Julie (to the right) is throwing up her hands in delight, well, that's how we all feel at Women's Initiative this week!

The San Francisco Chronicle dedicated a wonderful, front-page, Sunday edition article to Women's Initiative last Sunday.

Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to make you see yourself anew:

Julie Castro Abrams, the organization's chief executive officer, said 68 percent of graduates are in business within 12 months of completing the 10-week program, which costs $100, although a sliding scale means the applicants most in need pay less.

"A couple years later, they're too busy to return our phone calls," Abrams joked. "But they send checks and volunteer, or they come to be guest speakers and tell other women how to do it."

The agency has served more than 16,000 women in two decades. The average client is 41 years old, and 78 percent are women of color. Twenty-nine percent are single mothers, 15 percent have a disability, and 46 percent speak Spanish as their first or only language - which is why Women's Initiative offers programs in Spanish. All of the women are struggling, with an average household income of only $13,000 a year, and some are illiterate.

"Low-income women in particular have a whole set of issues about their self-perception and some of those demons that have become roadblocks for them in the past," Abrams said. "We help them visualize and get rid of them - like not pricing themselves appropriately because they don't think they're worth it, or giving themselves all the million reasons in the world not to go out and shake a hand or make sales because they're terrified."

The organization, which has a $4.9 million budget this year, relies on donations from foundations, corporations, government and individuals. In 2007, Women's Initiative made 160 loans to clients to help with their businesses, totaling $311,363 and ranging from $1,000 to $25,000.

In San Francisco last year, eight graduates received first-time leaseholder grants of $9,000 apiece, with the assistance of the Mayor's Office of Community Development, to help overcome a frequent problem: prohibitively high commercial rents.

The article also contained some praise from a peer:

Bob Graham, founder of NamasteDirect, a microcredit organization in San Francisco, said people often ask him if microcredit is being done anywhere in the United States as successfully as it is in much of the developing world.

"I always reply that it is, in a few cases," he said. "And the best example is Women's Initiative. It has a track record second to none."

Can you see us blushing?

You can read the whole thing for yourself here. And please talk back to us in the comments below! What did you think of the article? What would you add if you were writing it?