To further its role of advising the President, Congress and the U.S. Small Business Administration on issues related to women’s business ownership, the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) held a series of six town hall meetings with women business owners around the country throughout 2007 and 2008. The objective of the meetings was to hear from women business owners about their views on national-level policy issues in order to inform the Council’s future recommendations to government leaders.
Resource Category: Women
Latina Entrepreneurship Trends
Latinos play an important role in the self-employment growth. Fueled by immigration, they are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the US. With high employment rates and a lack of labor market success, what are alternative policies to improve economic outcomes?
Successful Practices for Women Entrepreneurship Programs
The National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) released a report which analyzes successful practices of entrepreneurship programs serving women students and offers tips to educational institutions looking to expand their programs for current and future women entrepreneurs. The two-part report, Successful Practices for Establishing and Modifying Entrepreneurship Programs for Women, reflects the Council’s commitment to increasing access to educational opportunities for women business owners.
Policy Priorities of Women Business Owners
On April 29, 2009, a town hall meeting of women business owners was held in Atlanta at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Student Center. Hosted and facilitated by the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC), this meeting was the seventh in a series of meetings that began in March 2007. NWBC designed these conversations to generate grassroots‐level recommendations from women business owners for the ultimate consideration of the President, Congress, and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
Minority Women Businesses Growing Fast
The Center for Women’s Business Research found that businesses owned by African American, Asian, and Hispanic women business owners substantially outpace all U.S. firms in the growth of revenues and number of employees.
Contributions of Women-Led Businesses
The economic impact of women business owners has long gone understated, according to a new two-part study released by the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) today. Based on custom datasets from the Census Bureau’s 2002 Survey of Business Owners and Self-Employed Persons (SBO), the reports assess the economic impact of women-owned and women-led firms on the U.S. economy by examining their receipts, compensation, geography, industry, and ethnography. The 2002 SBO is the most current information available on the distribution and contribution of women-led businesses.
NWBC Town Hall Meetings
In March and June 2007, the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) held town hall meetings with women business owners in St. Louis, Missouri and in Portland, Oregon. The objective of the meetings was to collect viewpoints and ideas from women business owners that could inform the Council’s policy positions and their future recommendations to government leaders.
State Differences in Women-Owned Business Performance
The National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) released a new study, Explaining State-Level Differences in Women-Owned Business Performance, which indicates that the success of women-owned businesses is impacted by particular state-level factors, such as the availability of technology infrastructure and an educated workforce. Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s special tabulations of 1997-2001 data on women-owned businesses’ (WOB) performance, the research is one of the first attempts to evaluate systematically the influence of factors that underlie state differences in WOB performance.
Impact of the Women’s Business Center Program
Between 2001 and 2003, the U.S. Small Business Administration provided $37 million in funding to up to 92 women’s business centers across the country. A new analysis of data provided by these centers to the SBA shows that this investment is paying off in increasing numbers of clients counseled, businesses started, and new jobs created.
Best Practices in Supporting Women’s Entrepreneurship
The historic growth of women-owned businesses in the United States has generated increased demand for the creation of innovative programs and policies to foster their growth. For the first time, two new reports from the National Women’s Business Council document this progress by examining current best practices in support of women’s entrepreneurship and by recording the history of policies that have resulted in today’s unprecedented 10.6 million U.S. businesses in which women are equal or majority owners.