Despite recent gains, women still lag behind men on key measures of start-up activity, and their firms tend not to grow or prosper as much. The Kauffman Foundation reports on how we can better tap into this under-utilized economic resource.
Resource Category: Women
Women-Owned Businesses 1997-2007
The most recent in Advocacy’s periodic series of reports on businesses owned by women and men.
Evaluating Mentorship Programs
Mentor-Protégé Programs exist in many federal agencies to help small businesses gain technical and business skills from large prime contractors and to build networks and experience that will help them compete and succeed in the federal contracting landscape. Started by the Department of Defense in 1991, there are now many versions of Mentor-Protégé Programs that share similar objectives but have different programmatic and incentive structures. The National Women’s Business Council conducted a research initiative to learn how well Mentor-Protégé Programs are serving women-owned businesses and how they might be strengthened to help women-owned businesses become an even greater engine driving economic recovery.
State of Women-Owned Businesses
Using data from the three most recent business census surveys, the most recent just published in December 2010, this report provides estimates of the number, employment and revenues of women-owned firms as of 2011.
Launching Women-Owned Businesses For Growth
This paper provides a foundation for the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) to develop and launch a major initiative targeted at helping women achieve high levels of business growth. NWBC is the single government organization that focuses exclusively on ensuring that this nation’s economy realizes the full potential of one of its fastest-growing segments – women-owned businesses. Integral to achieving this mission is to be a catalyst for women-owned businesses creating jobs and generating revenue.
Job Creation through Entrepreneurship
Is microenterprise development an effective job creation strategy during a recession? Key findings on women who entered employment, self-employment, providing jobs for others, job retention and creation, and full-time jobs.
Policy Priorities of Women Business Owners
On June 16, 2010, a summit of women business owners was held in Salem, Massachusetts, at the historic Hawthorne Hotel. Since the earliest Colonial times, Salem has been a major commercial center in a regional economy based on industries as varied as international maritime spice trade and textile manufacturing. Now, as the Greater Boston/North Shore region builds a twenty-first-century economy based on tourism, technology, and creativity, women entrepreneurs have the opportunity to play a key role. At this summit, women business owners on Boston’s North Shore shared their priorities, challenges, and concerns to help the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) to articulate policy recommendations for the consideration of the President, Congress, and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
Women Entrepreneurs Worldwide
This Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report seeks to understand global differences in the frequency and nature of women’s entrepreneurship, and makes comparisons with men across various societies.
Latina Entrepreneur SBE
This paper compares earnings of Latina entrepreneurs to both Latina wage/salary workers and to self-employed female non-Hispanic whites. Latina entrepreneurs are observed to have lower mean earnings than both white female entrepreneurs and Latina employees. However, our findings indicate that Latina entrepreneurs often do well, once differences in mean observable characteristics, such as education, are taken into account.
Impact of Women-Owned Businesses
For the first time, the Center for Women’s Business Research has utilized a methodology to measure the economic impact of the estimated 8 million U.S. businesses currently majority women-owned. Today, women-owned firms have an economic impact of $3 trillion annually that translates into the creation and/or maintenance of more than 23 million jobs – 16 percent of all U.S. jobs! These jobs not only sustain the individual worker but contribute to the economic security of their families, the economic vitality of their communities and the nation.