New Address: Two Embarcadero Center, 8th floor, San Francisco, CA 94111     

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.

Micro-Lending Pilot Program Report

The Dolores Huerta Foundation set out to launch a micro-lending pilot program, building capacity by researching small business curricula and micro-enterprise development models. Additionally, site visits were made to glean best practices and observe successful micro-lending operations.

Job Creation on a Budget

Properly designed, industry clusters are a low-cost way to stimulate innovation, new-firm start-ups, and job creation by helping to link and align the many factors that influence firm and regional growth.

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.

Intuit 2020 Trends Report

With a new decade upon us, a range of demographic, economic, social, and technological shifts are changing the way we live and operate around the world. The Intuit 2020 report looks at the significant trends and forces that are affecting consumers and small businesses, and those who serve them, over the next decade.

Capital Availability in Inner Cities

In this paper, we examine a key driver of business success—access to financial capital—and discuss current and potential roles of federal policy in ensuring access to capital for inner-city businesses. Access to capital has historically been a problem in low-to-moderate income (LMI) areas, illustrated most extremely in so-called “redlining,” a term coined in the 1960s to describe the practice of refusing to make loans or write insurance policies based on neighborhood characteristics, rather than merits of would-be borrowers. While this practice is illegal, the persistence of the “capital gap” has become a contentious issue among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Some believe that major regulatory efforts focused on improving credit access in LMI areas, such as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), have rendered the capital gap a problem of the past. Others believe that despite significant improvements, large barriers continue to exist, creating a shortage of capital for even investment-worthy inner city businesses. Resolving this debate is critical for designing appropriate public and private sector responses to the anemic economic performance in inner cities. 

Business Relocation & Homegrown Jobs

Relocation accounts for a smaller share of job gains and losses in California than in most other states, in part because most California businesses lie far from the border of neighboring states.

Startups in Job Creation and Destruction

Without start-ups, there would be no net job growth in the U.S. economy. This fact is true on average, but also is true for all but seven years for which the United States has data going back to 1977.

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).