Starting Small… Thinking Big. A Women’s Initiative Blog

OpEd urges Gov. Brown to stimulate homegrown business

Claudia Viek, CEO of the California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity, has a great opinion piece in today's San Francisco Chronicle making the case for microenterprise development and job creation.  Check out her insightful piece here:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/opinionshop/detail?entry_id=82152&plckItemsPerPage=10&plckSort=TimeStampDescending&plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:c50f8ab0-11a9-4dde-9af0-db51e30cac3f

 

A Plan for Creating New and Rewarding Jobs

With unemployment rates still well over 9% nationally and poverty at an all-time high, I have been struggling since President Obama’s State of the Union Address this week to understand how the president’s plan is going to create new and rewarding jobs, especially for those hit hardest by the recession – women and women of color.

Although most new job creation in the US has been in small business and most small business growth is happening among women- and immigrant-owned business, the president’s plan does little to leverage the most promising area for job creation in the US – microenterprises run by women and immigrant entrepreneurs.

The tax write offs for small business that the president mentioned will have the greatest benefits for the small businesses with the highest revenues. These tax write offs will have little impact on microenterprises, which by definition require relatively little capital investment.

Women’s Initiative graduates created and retained 3,818 jobs in the Bay Area in 2010 alone. This is an impressive number but microenterprise organizations like Women’s Initiative are only serving a fraction of their potential target population because of lack of funding and government support.

In fact, an investment in microenterprise development would address some of the other issues the president spoke about, including the need for public investments in R&D and clean transportation and energy technologies in order to compete with other nations such as India and China. Small firms in the US produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited. In addition, the majority of Women’s Initiative graduates start “green” businesses with innovative approaches to eliminating pollution and keeping their carbon footprint to a minimum.

Finally, the president spoke about our need for educational reform to meet the growing demand for a college educated workforce. The most powerful determinants of a child’s educational success are the mother’s employment status and income. There are millions of low-income mothers who dream of starting a business today so she can support her family and provide a safe, secure future for her children.

Everyone deserves a Ms. Waters, the principle the president told us the students thanked for showing them that they were smart and could make it. The women entrepreneurs who come to Women’s Initiative build lasting connections to a network of supportive women who show them that they are smart and can make it and 70% are still in business five years after training.

A plan to win the future must include microenterprise development for women and women of color and the support they need to win a future for themselves, their families, and communities.

Realizing King's Dream

Today, as we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, I am reminded that his fight was not just for racial equality, but also for economic equality.  In April 1967, he addressed this issue in a speech at Stanford Univeristy:

 There are literally two Americas .  One America is beautiful for situation.  And, in a sense, this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity.  This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits.  In this America , millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions.  And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity

But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America .  This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist.  In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums.  In this America people are poor by the millions.  They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult.  It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality.  And it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job.  And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality.

With poverty at an all-time high and the wealth gap at record highs as well, King’s “Other America” continues to be all too real.  It continues to be true that women, women of color and single mothers run the greatest risk of living in poverty. 

Every day at Women’s Initiative, we see the power of economic equality.  Women who have become successful business women and increased their income and assets improve the lives of themselves, their families, and their communities. They're pulling themselves up, regaining dignity and feeling safe and secure.  By achieving economic self sufficiency and becoming community leaders, these women not only are living their own dream, but Dr. King's as well.

 

 

 

 

Challenges in the Year Ahead

Reading the news at the start of this year, I learned in Equality, a True Soul Food (NYT 1/1/2011) that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possesses a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

Let that sink in…

Almost all of the people in America own collectively less than the wealthiest one percent! Trying to imagine this, I see a room of 100 people. If 90 of these people owned one car, the one hundredth would own more than ninety cars!

In reality though, we know that many of those ninety people wouldn’t even own a car or have enough to afford basic expenses such as medical care, housing, or food.

Inequality isn’t just a problem impacting the poorest of the poor. It impacts everyone, causing anxiety and distrust as well as mental and physical ailments such as heart disease, suicide, and cancer. There is much evidence that violent crime such as gang violence is directly related to inequality.

In 2010 Women’s Initiative helped 895 women become economically self-sufficient and create 3,818 jobs for themselves and others through their businesses but inequality still grew at a faster pace nationally. Our challenge in 2011 will be to scale our programs even faster, so every woman in the US will know she has the power to keep her family safe, build assets and achieve prosperity.

Department of Labor Encourages Local Workforce Investment in Entrepreneurs



Who are microentrepreneurs? Are they in Bangladesh? Are they very small business owners? Are they startups? Are they employers or are they workers?

All of the above! Microentrepreneurs in the US are self-employed workers who have started a business with less than $35K in startup capital and fewer than 5 employees. Many of the businesses in your neighborhood are most likely microenterprises!

Starting a microenterprise has traditionally been a strategy for disadvantaged entrepreneurs to achieve economic self-sufficiency and build assets through business ownership despite the lack of business capital. Microentrepreneurs contribute significantly to the unique character of neighborhoods as well as the local economy because they create more local jobs and spend more locally than national chains.

As part of an ambitious campaign to educate all of our public policy makers about the important role that microentrepreneurship plays in our current economic recovery, we have focused our research and public policy efforts on Job Creation Through Microenterprise Development. Women’s initiative has presented our findings report to public policy makers from here in the Bay Area to Sacramento and Washington DC.

In November the Department of Labor released a ground breaking statement that encourages workforce investment in entrepreneurship training because small businesses:

·        Represent 99.7% of employers

·        Employ over half of workers

·        Have generated 64% of new jobs

·        Are essential for economic recovery

Getting this statement of support from the Department of Labor is a great start to making 2011 the year of Job Creation Through Microenterprise Development but training, funding and business support services are still only available to a fraction of microentrepreneurs, very small business owners, startups, small employers, and self-employed workers in the US. Please see the Women’s Initiative website to learn how you can get involved in Job Creation Through Microenterprise Development.

How Women's Initiative is a Key Player in the Fight against the Widening Income Disparity Gap in America

 

NPR reported last week about the growing income gap in America : “While almost everyone in America thinks of themselves as middle class, income disparities are wide and getting wider. While wages stagnated for almost everybody in the middle or even went down, the rich got richer these past 30 years. Venezuela and Nicaragua now have more equitable pay than the United States. Over time, the effect of these disparities and the narrowing of the social ladder can corrode faith that life is fair and that the rules make sense.” (You can listen to the full story here.)

Women’s Initiative is working to pull up low-income earners through our unique microenterprise training program, where our graduates learn to start and maintain their own businesses. This not only results in employment for them, but contributes to the building of an important personal asset – the business itself.

Business equity ranks second to homeownership as a share of overall household wealth in this country – so building the asset of their business is an important step toward vaulting past this gap. And business ownership is an asset which can be a bridge to home ownership.

Women’s Initiative focuses exclusively on training for low income women. For these women, particularly those with barriers to traditional wage employment, home ownership is often an unattainable dream. Yet through our program, where over 70% of our training graduates have been in business for over 5 years, building business equity – as a primary asset which can be leveraged to purchase a home – will help us in closing the wealth gap once and for all.

Women’s Initiative Offers to Help Los Angeles Spend Stimulus Funds

Dear Los Angeles Public Works and Transportation Departments,

I was sorry to read in David Zahniser’s article in the Los Angeles Times (09/17/2010) that you have been struggling to spend the $111 million in stimulus funds you have been awarded and that you have so far only managed to create 55 jobs.

It must be very slow indeed to secure government approval of contracts. I understand that you plan to eventually create or retain 264 jobs when you get around to spending the funds.

I am very impressed to hear that you have decided to begin looking for ways to streamline the contracting process and that you hope to start seeing changes in six months.

Women’s Initiative for Self Employment has been struggling too. We have waiting lists of low-income women, most without employment, wanting to take our business plan training course so they can create jobs for themselves and others by starting a business, but we just don’t have enough funding to add more courses this year.

So, like your agency, we have just had to do the best we could. We don’t have nearly the budget that you do but we have managed to provide business training to more women than ever in this past year. In 2009, 1,195 women graduated from our business plan training course. Our data to date indicates that these women will likely create and retain 1,123 jobs for themselves and others by the end of this year at an average cost of just over $4K per job.

I know this is nothing compared to the really expensive jobs that you are beginning to figure out how to create, but it’s a start.

If you find that you don’t really have the time – or if it’s just too much of a struggle – to begin looking for ways to spend the federal stimulus funding you have been awarded to create jobs, just let us know. We would be more than happy to help.

The low-income women who are waiting to get into our courses and these women’s families would really appreciate it as well.

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth de Renzy

Women’s Initiative Bringing Job Creation to the Table at the Fourth Annual San Francisco Women’s Policy Summit

On Wednesday, September 15, 2010 Women’s Initiative has been invited to participate in the Fourth Annual SF Women’s Policy Summit: “Empowerment and Access”.

For the past three years, the SF Women's Policy Summit has convened an exciting group of leaders to build networks, outline policy issues, and encourage elected officials and candidates for office to support the future of women and families in San Francisco. This year, Women’s Initiative has been asked to participate on two expert panels on job creation and small business.

Brandi Chalker, Women’s Initiative graduate and Owner of Urban Bazaar, will be joined by Nicole Levine, Executive Director of the North Bay, in a break out session to explore the reality of being a woman business owner in San Francisco and identify policy priorities for business success that leads to job creation and economic development.

Elizabeth de Renzy, Researcher and Data Analyst, will join policy experts, Tom Radulovich (Livable City, BART), Fei Tsen (SPUR, Greenbelt Alliance, Chinatown Community Development Corporation), Peter Albert (SFMTA), and Christina Olague (Planning Commission) on a panel to discuss how the development of women owned businesses can enable San Francisco to continue to grow while creating local jobs and strong neighborhoods in which women and families can thrive.

For more information about the summit see the website of the SF Department on the Status of Women. 

Women's Initiative featured on Inc.com

One of our Women’s Initiative Woman Entrepreneur of the Year winners is also a blogger for Inc.com.  Check out Janine Popick’s, of VerticalResponse, blog today on winning the award and the importance of recognizing women in business.

If you’d like to do your part in recognizing the contributions of women business owners, be sure to attend one of our Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award ceremonies in October.  More info and purchase tickets here!

 

 

Call for policies that create jobs through microenterprise development for Latinas

Together with leaders from other civil rights, labor, and student organizations, NCLR is leading One Nation Working Together, a national campaign to call for policies to create jobs and invest in a strong economic future. A major feature of the campaign is an historic rally scheduled to take place in Washington, DC on October 2, 2010. Click here to learn more about One Nation Working Together.

Business ownership has historically been one of the most effective ways for low-skilled Hispanic entrepreneurs to increase income and build assets in the US. The self-employment rate of Latinas is rapidly growing, especially in the states along the US-Mexico border. Nevertheless, disparities in business ownership still exist. Latina entrepreneurs face challenges both in starting and growing their businesses. Training, networking, and mentoring opportunities are often limited and there is unequal access to capital resulting from discriminatory treatment in both the public and private sectors.

An investment in microenterprise development targeting the low-income Latinas would create jobs, build assets, and reduce poverty among Hispanic families.

At the height of the recession, nine in ten un- and underemployed women who received microenterprise training through Women’s Initiative entered employment or self-employment within the first year after training. More than one in ten provided jobs for others within the first year.

Small businesses are the foundation of American neighborhoods and small towns. They provide jobs and increase the purchasing power that will stimulate the local economy. Business ownership has played an important role in the upward economic mobility of immigrants. Self-employment rates for Latinas, especially immigrants, are growing at a rapid pace but disparities still exist. Microenterprise development services are an import part of the solution to escalating poverty and unemployment rates among Latinos.

Join Women's Initiative by calling for policies that create jobs through microenterprise development for women, especially Latinas and immigrants.