Fran Pastore

The economic clout of women-owned businesses is undeniable. In the United States, there are 8.1 million women business owners, generating almost $1.3 trillion in revenue and employing nearly 7.7 million people, according to The American Express OPEN State of Women-Owned Business Report.

The ability to grow and sustain these valuable enterprises is critically important to our national economy. In 2008, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) reported in NAWBO Celebrates the Passage of HR 50/50 that, for the past two decades, women-owned businesses grew at nearly twice the rate of all businesses. It is important to encourage and provide resources to women in business and to those wanting to expand their professional careers because, according to the White House Council on Women and Girls, women make up half of our workforce and control 30 percent of small businesses.

The power of women-owned businesses is not limited to one industry. They continue to diversify all industries with the fastest growth in education and administrative services, as well as in construction. In the United States, based on an October 2009 survey fromThe Center for Women's Business Research,The Economic Impact of Women-Owned Businesses in the United States, 417 women-owned businesses were directly responsible for $59 million dollars worth of goods and services from other vendors. Subsequently, the total output of sales in the U.S. economy was $147.8 million. The survey also proved that women-owned businesses were directly responsible for creating 612 jobs and the spending of their employees created an additional 249 jobs in the United States in that year alone.

Although women-owned businesses are growing at rates that exceed national averages, they still face the challenge of scalability and sustainability beyond the start-up phase. To overcome this gap, resources must be made available to these businesses. A recent study by the Association of Women's Business Centers,The Value and Visions of Women's Business Center Leaders in the United States,stated that gender-focused entrepreneurial training, education, coaching, counseling and mentoring are key to this success.

Since 1988, the U.S. Small Business Administration has trained women entrepreneurs through its Women’s Business Center Program (WBC), part of the legislation under HR 50/50, by providing the much-needed counseling, training, and assistance required forboth start-ups and established businesses. WBC programs focus on building small and micro businesses from the ground up. They create sustainable enterprises that ultimately improve the overall well being of communities around the country by creating jobs and taxpayers nationwide. It is imperative that programs like the WBC program not only survive butthrive despite proposed funding cuts acrossthe federal budget. These programs create jobs and taxpayers. To underscore this point, in the three years between 2001–2003, a federal investment in WBC’s of $36.5 million generated $500 million in gross receipts, a nearly 14:1 ratio of business revenues to federal dollars! Moreover, in 2011, according to the most recent data, women helped launch over 13,000 new businesses, create over 35,000 new jobs, and are leading firms which contribute over a billion dollars to the U.S. economy.

WBCs provide counseling that can help business start, grow, and succeed. In the past year alone, they helped more than 100,000 women.WBCs offer unique benefits to clients that are not available anywhere else: A comfortable, nurturing and nonjudgmental atmosphere, personalized hands-on support, and a women-friendly environment. In addition, WBC clients are enthusiastically supportive in return, an important asset for the future growth and success of these programs. As a result of the women-friendly delivery of services, clients return for additional help. The CWBR study found that clients visited centers 7.7 times per year on average whether they were prospective owners or new owners, indicating that services offered are relevant to pre-start ups and young firms, too.

Women's business centers are an integral part of economic development because they are connected, collaborative, and leverage assets to benefit their clients, linking them to sister SBDC's, local chambers of commerce, and various government agencies. This impact is clear and quantifiable. From 2001 to 2003, at a time when funding remained essentially flat, the number of clients contacted rose 61 percent, the clients served doubled, and the numbers of firms created increased 376 percent. This positive client translated to an impressive 6,600 new firms and 12,719 new jobs!

Though WBC’s help over 100,000 women annually, funding remains a critically important challenge that threatens the proactive steps centers are making. Recently, financial support from the SBA has been threatened and increasingly delayed in Washington, challenging staffing, management, and fundraising initiatives. In order for WBC's to sustain existing programs and continue growing, WBC leaders must scramble to seek financial support any way they can.

To blindly restrict this essential funding is to overlook that women-owned businesses are essential toalleconomic development. Clearly, to provide WBC’s with the necessary tools to help local women in their communities achieve economic growth and financial autonomy is to achieve economic growth and autonomy in the U.S. economy overall.  Funding for WBC’s must continue.