Women's Initiative Talks Job Creation with Nancy Pelosi

By: Ellen Snook, Marketing Communications Director 

Women’s Initiative was honored to host an event in celebration of Women’s Equality Day with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

The event took place on Thursday, August 25, at Women’s Initiative graduate business, Casa Bonampak in San Francisco’s Mission District. Five graduates of the Women’s Initiative Simple Steps program, as well as four clients of Working Solutions, a nonprofit organization which provides microentrepreneurs with access to capital and resources, set up showcases of their businesses and spoke with Congresswoman Pelosi about their businesses, the jobs they have created, and how owning a business has improved their lives. After Congresswoman Pelosi met each of the business owners, they were seated at a roundtable to discuss job creation and issues facing women small business owners today.

The Congresswoman said that current budget decisions will have an impact on women and that Washington must ensure that the budget focuses on keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive in this country. Julie Castro Abrams, CEO of Women’s Initiative, thanked Congresswoman Pelosi for being such an inspiring mentor to all women and for being an advocate of Women’s Initiative. Abrams said that Congresswoman Pelosi’s support of Women’s Initiative has helped create jobs, but that she must keep fighting the good fight and ensure that microenterprise development is included in Washington’s job creation strategy. Mark Quinn, district director of the SBA, underscored that all new jobs are coming from small business.

ABC7 and SF Gate/Mission Local covered the event.
Click here to see Congresswoman Pelosi's newsletter about the event

You can help women business owners continue to create new jobs by contacting your congressperson and asking them to make sure the jobs bill includes support of SBA Women's Business centers.

Women's Initiative Graduates participating in the event:
Nancy Charraga
Casa Bonampak
1051 Valencia St., San Francisco www.casabonampak.com
Created four jobs

Sharone Mendes
Carmel Blue Pregnancy and Parenting
1418 Grant St. San Francisco http://carmelblue.com
Created three jobs plus employment for many contractors

Kelly Smith
Rubber Ducky Soap Company www.rubberduckysoap.com
Created four jobs

Josey White
The Front Porch Restaurant
65a 29th Street
San Francisco, CA www.thefrontporch.com
Created 19 jobs

Cristina Arantes
Kika’s Treats
www.kikastreats.com

Technorati Tags: job creation, Nancy Pelosi, Working Solutions

Microfinance: A New Approach to Preventing HIV/AIDS

By: Guest Blogger, Sara Eisenstaedt, Microenterprise Fellow

The field of microfinance has demonstrated itself as an innovative, viable solution to alleviating poverty issues both domestically and abroad, but its additional benefits extend far beyond the realm of economics. Issues relating to business seemingly do not intersect with those concerning health, but recent data is proving that this link deserves further exploration. Microfinance is now being suggested as a new intervention strategy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and initial research is showing promising results for women’s financial and physical wellbeing.

According to a recent article examining the link between microfinance and HIV/AIDS prevention, Dworkin and Blankenship (2009) suggest that financially disempowered women are at greater risk of being exposed to high-risk sexual situations than women who are economically independent. These situations may include engaging in sex for money or assets, remaining in abusive domestic relationships, or losing the power to negotiate safe sex practices with partners, and any one of these risk factors can increase the likelihood of HIV/AIDS exposure. Microfinance, therefore, may support HIV/AIDS prevention by providing these women the opportunity to access alternative income sources and economic empowerment.

Research in this emerging field is still in its early stages, but JEWEL (Jewelry Education for Women Empowering Their Lives) is one program that has given an initial glimpse into microfinance’s potential power to combat HIV/AIDS. In its pilot study, JEWEL offered a group of female sex workers in Baltimore, Maryland the opportunity to attend six, two-hour classes that incorporated HIV prevention lessons as well as microfinance strategies about how to make, market, and sell jewelry. At the time of initial follow up, researchers found that participants engaged in less sex for drugs or money, and reported a lower average of sex partners per month. In addition, after three months researchers noted that jewelry sale income was associated with a reduced number of participants’ overall sex partners.

Given the positive results of the JEWEL study, it is clear that microfinance may have a very real impact on women’s ability to protect their own physical health. Further research into this emerging field is still needed, but at first glance it appears that the benefits of microfinance are not exclusively limited to business. With this knowledge in mind, it is essential that microfinance organizations like Women’s Initiative continue to be supported and credited with tackling social issues that extend far beyond the realm of poverty.

Celebrate the Power of Women Entrepreneurs!

By: Ellen Snook, Marketing Communications Director

Women business owners are a powerful and growing force in this country. To celebrate the impact these women are having on our local economies, Women’s Initiative has launched its third annual Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

Recent census numbers show that:
• As of 2007, women owned 7.8 million businesses in the United States.
• These women-owned firms employ 7.6 million persons
• and generate $1.2 trillion in receipts.

But what’s more important is the impact these women entrepreneurs are having on how American businesses are run. A 2010 study by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute showed that by 2018 women entrepreneurs will be responsible for creating between 5 million and 5.5 million new jobs nationwide. That’s more than half of the 9.7 million new jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects small businesses to create, and about one-third of the total new jobs the BLS projects will be created nationwide in that time frame.

According to the Guardian study, women are most likely to start businesses because they’re unhappy with corporate life. When they become their own bosses, they are more likely than male managers or entrepreneurs to be:
• diligently engaged in strategic and tactical facets of their business
• proactively customer-focused
• likely to incorporate community and environment into their business plans
• receptive to input and guidance from internal and external advisers
• committed to creating opportunities for others

Do you know a woman entrepreneur who has a successful business, is creating jobs, is innovative, and/or is having an impact on her community? Nominate her today for our Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards!

Technorati Tags: women business owners, women entrepreneurs

Lack of Financing Putting the Brakes on Startups

By: Elizabeth de Renzy, Researcher & Data Analyst

Startups are said to be the economy’s great job creators but the credit crunch has hurt young businesses. In a recent issue of Time magazine (4/11) it was reported that new businesses with fewer than 100 employees created about 50% more jobs than older firms from 1992 to 2005. However from 2006 to 2009, jobs created by startups have fallen behind. Startups (which typically finance their businesses with home equity loans and credit cards) have been particularly hurt by this recession which caused a decreased demand and a lack of credit.


Women entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area were able to create and retain 4,332 local jobs in 2010 with training, funding, and support from Women’s Initiative for Self Employment.

The need to support young businesses has never been greater. To create the jobs that will restore our economy we will need to make capital accessible to the smallest new businesses.

Technorati Tags: credit, jobs, recession, Startups, women

Congressman George Miller Meets with Graduates

By: Guest Blogger, Theresa McMenomy, Microenterprise Fellow

The Concord Office had a special visit yesterday by Congressman George Miller, who has represented California’s 7th District since 1975. Miller learned how Women’s Initiative plays a vital role in creating jobs and building the local economy. As the Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, job creation is of the upmost importance to Miller, and Women’s Initiative was the right place for him to be.

With a Simple Steps course in action, Congressman Miller met with current students and later had a discussion with a number of graduates from his constituency. Each graduate shared their story on how and why they came to start their businesses, and many shared samplings of their products.

“This economy is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and I’m older than all of you,” said Miller as he applauded the graduates for finding their own innovative solutions. When the economy does improve, he assured the graduates that they will be well positioned to take their businesses to the next level.

Women have many barriers to overcome, Miller emphasized, for starters, just to get health insurance, being a woman is often a “pre-existing condition,” and motherhood can make a traditional 9 to 5 job feel nearly impossible. Entrepreneurship can help women create a job for themselves around their hurdles.

In hopes to expand micro-entrepreneurship and Women’s Initiative’s impact nationwide, especially through federal support, CEO Julie Castro-Abrams expressed the need to partner with the Congressman. Perhaps we do have a new partner, because Miller reflected in his blog that at Women’s Initiative he “saw great examples of job creation and community building in the East Bay.”

To see pictures of the event, check out the Congressman George Miller’s blog post on the event.

Technorati Tags: Concord, George Miller, micro-entrepreneurship, Women’s Initiative

Non-Profits not Necessary?

By: Guest Blogger, Gabriel Germanow, Women’s Initiative Fellow

A recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle advised interim Mayor Ed Lee to slash city funding for non-profit organizations. San Francisco is facing a projected $380 million budget deficit for 2011, so fixing the budget is necessarily one of Mr. Lee’s primary concerns. However, cutting funding for non-profit organizations is not the way to improve the efficiency of city government.

The author of the SF Chronicle column, C.W. Nevius, suggests that Mr. Lee cut funding for non-profits because “many of the programs provide overlapping services, aren't required to prove they are making an impact, and don't always need to account for how they've spent the city's money.” What Mr. Nevius neglects to recognize is the important role non-profit organizations play in society.

Non-profits provide tremendous value in this day and age. As a third branch of society – uniquely different from government and business – non-profit civil society helps to fill many of the gaps (and the people who fall through them) not explicitly addressed by government or business activity. Non-profits provide important social services for the hungry and homeless; they protect the environment from negative impacts; they build community; and they foster and promote social justice.

Moreover, civil society is a crucial partner in San Francisco’s efforts to improve city life. Non-profits help complement the services provided by government, in many cases channeling or directing public funding to those who need it most. It is arguable, in fact, that the work of government and civil society are both improved by mutual collaboration. Cutting non-profits from the city’s budget, then, would, only serve to impede important work being done to better our local community.

Women’s Initiative is one organization whose funding might be threatened by cutting non-profits from the city budget. Over the past 22 years, Women’s Initiative has served more than 20,000 women and built their entrepreneurial capacity to overcome economic and social barriers through comprehensive business training and support.

This organization, like so many others, offers important services to an under-served segment of the population.

Though a $380 million city budget deficit is nothing to sneer at, simply cutting non-profit funding is not the way to go. Rather, like Mr. Nevius later states, San Francisco ought to put better systems in place to help non-profits improve reporting and accountability on their finances, management and outcomes. Demanding increased accountability would actually do non-profits an important service and would force organizations not meeting their mission to think hard about how they can improve their work.

Though San Francisco faces many challenges, non-profit organizations play a crucial role in helping better the city. They deserve our ongoing attention and support.

Technorati Tags: budget, Non-Profit, San Francisco, Women's Initiative

Latinos in a Digital Divide

By: Guest Blogger, J. Lopez

One can safely assume that if you are reading this you are on the internet. Are you reading it from home? On your phone? To some, accessing the internet is as normal as coming home and turning on the television. But according to the Pew Hispanic Center report, “Latinos and the Digital Technology, 2010,” only about 65% of Latinos in the United States use the internet as opposed to 77% of white Americans. It also states that only 45% of 45 million Latinos in America have broadband internet connections at home while whites stand at 65%.

What is most interesting about this report is that if education and income were controlled the digital divide disappears between whites and Latinos. What this says is that there is no real difference between the two groups other than identity. Reports such as this one helps feed the idea that if more effort were put into leveling the playing field there would most likely be no noticeable statistical difference between Latino and whites in income, education, and all that follows.

Latinos, in the coming years, will count for almost one third of the nation’s population. Seeing that they will be the majority, their use of technology is nowhere near where it should be for such a large population. Latinos and other minorities need to be allowed to be more competitive. Better educational and income opportunities are needed for those in the lower-income brackets in order for them to be successful and have access to things that many take for granted such as an internet connection at home or a cell phone.

Technorati Tags: Hispanic, Latinos, technology

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Beware of Immigration Scams

By: Elizabeth De Renzy, Researcher & Data Analyst

Con artists posing as legitimate immigration service providers recently charged an Oakland woman $675 for fake application forms, pseudo counseling, and a bogus appointment with immigration.

“They seemed so nice!” said the woman.

The scammers are very polite and professional seeming, giving victims the impression that they are legitimate. They fax their victims official looking forms and give detailed (albeit phony) instructions on the application and interview process.

“It’s not just the money, but all of the information we gave them!”

The swindlers, who called themselves Immigration Forms Profession Center, collected all kinds of information from the woman including her social security number, present and past contact information for her and her children, as well as her signature.

“I feel so stupid!” the woman said.

These crooks have developed a very sophisticated scheme for tricking unsuspecting people into believing that they can help them with their applications. They have legitimate looking websites, materials, and call centers. Beware of imposters asking for your personal information and checks for immigration application and processing fees.

The correct website of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is www.uscis.gov.

To file a complaint in English or Spanish, visit the FTC’s online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-877-FTC-HELP end_of_the_skype_highlighting (1-877-382-4357 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-877-382-4357 end_of_the_skype_highlighting).
For more information on immigration scams see the website of the Federal Trade Commission.

Technorati Tags: immigration, Immigration Forms Profession Center, scam, warning

Empowerment: Getting Women Working in a Women’s America

By Guest Blogger, Matt Borden

It's no secret that those of us here tonight have had our differences over the last two years. The debates have been contentious; we have fought fiercely for our beliefs. And that's a good thing. That's what a robust democracy demands. That's what helps set us apart as a nation.

President Obama uttered these lines introducing his third State of the Union Address. Women stood with the president as he made his way down the center aisle. The 112^th congress sat down in a new seating arrangement, democrat next to republican, with hope to restore civility on the hill and to display respect for representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.

17 women form a record 17% of the Senate. At a record 17.47%, 76 of the 435 members of Congress are women. Currently 3 of the 9 Supreme Court justices are women in large part due to recent appointments. 7 was the record for most women serving as state governors at 14% until Sarah Palin resigned, leaving 6 current women governors at 12%.

The president’s speech follows a fierce two years of vibrant and at times aggressive political opposition. Obama mentioned winning the future as a nation, hopefully an economically secure future that women are becoming more a part of everyday. But how, you ask, can our future look so good if right now things are looking so bad? That has to do with the very thread of our liberal society.

By liberal I don’t mean elitist, blue-state democrats. On the contrary, I mean to include anyone who supports a legitimate democracy. The ideas that make up classic liberalism are so obvious and accepted today that we hardly stop to think carefully about them or what it means to live in a liberal society.

The fact that the United States is a liberal society is made evident by the value we place on material goods. This is why I was able to count no fewer than 200 different cereal options during my last trip to the supermarket. That we are a liberal society is why more women are now graduating from college than men are. Individualism, competition, the right to property, small government, and private business, these values are all a part of classic liberalism.

Liberalism is the American ideology because as a culture, the United States has formed its social conventions upon these founding principles. The way we think about ourselves in relation to others, status, what we conceive of as progress or achievement and how we work for it, the status quo, indeed our whole worldview is largely shaped by liberal values.

So you might be thinking, what does any of this have to do with a secure future for women? Loads. I’m talking about entitlement, enfranchisement, and empowerment. Aminur Rahman of the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada studies the social impact of microcredit on women in the Third World. He makes a fundamental distinction between entitlement, enfranchisement, and empowerment.

As Rahman explains in his book, Women and Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh, entitlement is one’s prerogative; it is their right to having something, be it a material good or a right or a freedom. Enfranchisement describes one’s ability to participate in decisions about their own entitlement. Empowerment is about action; it is the power one evokes by acting on their rights or freedoms. These three E’s can be thought of as steps in a staircase because reaching a higher step necessitates the successful achievement of an earlier step.

These three E’s are useful for thinking about how women are laying claim to their rightful position in American public culture. In fact just to think that women are deserving of equal status is testimony to the entitlement women now hold. Suffrage, or the civil right to vote, is also known as “political franchise.” Congress voted to pass the Nineteenth Amendment to our Constitution granting women’s suffrage in 1920. Women became legally entitled to the same rights as men that year. But this is not to say that men and women have nothing left to strive for.
It is a fact that women doing the same work at the same job are paid less than men.

There exist large gaps between the sexes in metrics measuring income, wealth, and business ownership. If the government distribution amongst the sexes weren’t skewed enough, reports suggest only 13% of partners at Goldman Sachs (Wall Street’s elite) are women. These contrasts suggest real equality is not a historical event but a significant goal America is still working towards. The good news is that gaps in economic and political achievement are narrowing steadily. The beauty of our liberal nation is that real equality can be achieved in a foreseeable future.

Women’s Initiative works to empower women by helping them realize that they have the power to build assets, be safe, and achieve prosperity. Woman leadership and self-employment are not about politics or ideology but about taking ownership and making equality an active process with lasting results, starting with business. These positive changes in business translate as social empowerment in every other part of women’s lives. Women can make a big impact in winning the future by working for themselves. Business and competition care not about sex or gender but about merit because as our president said tonight, it is what our democracy demands.

Technorati Tags: business ownership, empowerment , enfranchisement, entitlement, gender, income, liberalism, Obama, State of the Union Address, wealth, women, Women’s Initiative

Microenterprise: An exciting idea for job creation

Liz Hamburg, president of Upstart Ventures and a supporter of Women's Initiative in New York, just posted about microenterprise and job creation on her Huffington Post blog. Check it out here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-hamburg/microenterprise-an-exciti_b_813738.html

Posted by Ellen Snook on February 04, 2011 

OpEd urges Gov. Brown to stimulate homegrown business

Claudia Viek, CEO of the California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity, has a great opinion piece in today's San Francisco Chronicle making the case for microenterprise development and job creation. Check out her insightful piece here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/opinionshop/detail?entry_id=82152&plckItemsPerPage=10&plckSort=TimeStampDescending&plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:c50f8ab0-11a9-4dde-9af0-db51e30cac3f

A Plan for Creating New and Rewarding Jobs

By: Elizabeth de Renzy, Researcher & Data Analyst

With unemployment rates still well over 9% nationally and poverty at an all-time high, I have been struggling since President Obama’s State of the Union Address this week to understand how the president’s plan is going to create new and rewarding jobs, especially for those hit hardest by the recession – women and women of color.

Although most new job creation in the US has been in small business and most small business growth is happening among women- and immigrant-owned business, the president’s plan does little to leverage the most promising area for job creation in the US – microenterprises run by women and immigrant entrepreneurs.

The tax write offs for small business that the president mentioned will have the greatest benefits for the small businesses with the highest revenues. These tax write offs will have little impact on microenterprises, which by definition require relatively little capital investment.

Women’s Initiative graduates created and retained 3,818 jobs in the Bay Area in 2010 alone. This is an impressive number but microenterprise organizations like Women’s Initiative are only serving a fraction of their potential target population because of lack of funding and government support.
In fact, an investment in microenterprise development would address some of the other issues the president spoke about, including the need for public investments in R&D and clean transportation and energy technologies in order to compete with other nations such as India and China. Small firms in the US produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited. In addition, the majority of Women’s Initiative graduates start “green” businesses with innovative approaches to eliminating pollution and keeping their carbon footprint to a minimum.

Finally, the president spoke about our need for educational reform to meet the growing demand for a college educated workforce. The most powerful determinants of a child’s educational success are the mother’s employment status and income. There are millions of low-income mothers who dream of starting a business today so she can support her family and provide a safe, secure future for her children.

Everyone deserves a Ms. Waters, the principle the president told us the students thanked for showing them that they were smart and could make it. The women entrepreneurs who come to Women’s Initiative build lasting connections to a network of supportive women who show them that they are smart and can make it and 70% are still in business five years after training.
A plan to win the future must include microenterprise development for women and women of color and the support they need to win a future for themselves, their families, and communities.

Realizing King's Dream

By: Ellen Snook, Director of Marketing & Communication

Today, as we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, I am reminded that his fight was not just for racial equality, but also for economic equality. In April 1967, he addressed this issue in a speech at Stanford Univeristy:

There are literally two Americas . One America is beautiful for situation. And, in a sense, this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America , millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity

But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America . This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. And it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality.

With poverty at an all-time high and the wealth gap at record highs as well, King’s “Other America” continues to be all too real. It continues to be true that women, women of color and single mothers run the greatest risk of living in poverty. 

Every day at Women’s Initiative, we see the power of economic equality. Women who have become successful business women and increased their income and assets improve the lives of themselves, their families, and their communities. They're pulling themselves up, regaining dignity and feeling safe and secure. By achieving economic self sufficiency and becoming community leaders, these women not only are living their own dream, but Dr. King's as well.

Challenges in the Year Ahead

By: Elizabeth de Renzy, Researcher & Data Analyst

Reading the news at the start of this year, I learned in Equality, a True Soul Food (NYT 1/1/2011) that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possesses a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

Let that sink in…

Almost all of the people in America own collectively less than the wealthiest one percent! Trying to imagine this, I see a room of 100 people. If 90 of these people owned one car, the one hundredth would own more than ninety cars!

In reality though, we know that many of those ninety people wouldn’t even own a car or have enough to afford basic expenses such as medical care, housing, or food.

Inequality isn’t just a problem impacting the poorest of the poor. It impacts everyone, causing anxiety and distrust as well as mental and physical ailments such as heart disease, suicide, and cancer. There is much evidence that violent crime such as gang violence is directly related to inequality.

In 2010 Women’s Initiative helped 895 women become economically self-sufficient and create 3,818 jobs for themselves and others through their businesses but inequality still grew at a faster pace nationally. Our challenge in 2011 will be to scale our programs even faster, so every woman in the US will know she has the power to keep her family safe, build assets and achieve prosperity.