CPA Helps States Invest in Entrepreneurship

Since Entrepreneurship Action Day, our launch event in early June, CPA has joined forces with elected leaders and women entrepreneurs to jump-start statewide conversations about investments in women business owners. Currently, women-owned firms account for 38 percent of all firms in the U.S. and are the fastest growing sector of all state economies. These women-owned businesses employ one in four American workers. Illinois State Representative Rosemary Mulligan (R), Pennsylvania State Senator Allyson Schwartz (D), and Pennsylvania House Minority Leader State Representative Bill DeWeese (D) are among the leaders in 18 states hosting forums to develop policy agendas that increase:

• access to financing,
• training and education,
• public and private sector partnerships, and
• women’s leadership in the economic sector.

To help states define a policy agenda, CPA is conducting a 50-state survey on state investment in women and minority entrepreneurial development. CPA’s policy checklist encourages:

• Banks to increase financing options available to women and minority business owners; pooling together loans of the same kind is one way of doing this
• State agencies to offer additional training and educational programs for women and minority business owners
• State programs increasing opportunities for women- and minority-owned businesses to compete for and procure government contracts, such as contracting goals and policies that support partnering for large contracts

CPA Receives Public Policy Award

CPA Senior Vice President Anne Mosle and Entrepreneurship Policy Coordinator Ericka Hines recently received a Public Policy Award given to CPA by the Business Women’s Network (BWN). The award was presented as a part of BWN’s Global Business Summit,a gathering of 1500 women entrepreneurs, working women, corporate women and women in government from the U.S. and abroad.