Help for Women Entrepreneurs Across the States
This article is the first in a series
looking at the key issues to be addressed in CPA’s 1998 Economic Package.
Women across the country place great importance on small
business startup and entrepreneurship. By most estimates, women-owned
businesses are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy. Nearly half (44
percent) of all women under 45 want their own small
business, according to CPA’s Women’s Voices ’96 survey. This
figure jumps to two-thirds for African American women under 45,
and three-quarters for Latinas under 45.
Converting these aspirations into action without prior business
training can be a formidable task, however. Three out of ten Women’s Voices
respondents who wanted to start a business saw getting loans and credit
as the biggest obstacle. Increasingly, women face the additional
challenge of knowing how best to use small business startup money.
Responses to these training and technical assistance needs will be
evident in legislatures across the country and a key component of CPA’s Women’s Economic Agenda, to be introduced during the 1998 state legislative session.
Some states area already initiating efforts to link training and technical assistance to public capital available for starting small businesses. Some states are looking at bills that link micro-loan money to technical assistance and training.
“Small businesses and micro-enterprise are the largest job producers in Michigan and in the U.S.,” said Michigan state Rep. Lynne Martinez. Martinez, a 1995 Flemming Fellow who launched two businesses on her own, knows first-hand the benefits of training and technical assistance for small business start-up. “Especially as women transition off welfare, we need to help those with their own ideas gain access to business training, loan funds and technical assistance.”
Other states, including
Missouri, Iowa, Michigan and Maine are pursuing strategies that strengthen
individual and family savings programs. Family Development Accounts
(FDAs) and Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) allow individuals
below a certain income level to establish savings accounts for
specific purposes, including startup capitalization of a small business.
Some state FDAs allow outside contributions to individual
accounts but require that these contributions be matched through
account holder cash, training, volunteer work or counseling.
The Economic Agenda Package will be made up of model
legislation that utilizes women’s solutions for obstacles to economic
self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship, health and
security and family and work issues.
For more information on how
you can be a part of CPA’s Economic Legislative Agenda, contact Anne
Mosle ([email protected]), Director of CPA’s Women’s Program.
