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