Businesswomen Worldwide!

Women entrepreneurs are a worldwide trend! This year-old BBC story on women in biz in the UK talks a little about why women choose to run their own businesses and what hardships they face.
Also check out this news story from Canada.

Whittle On Charity and Microcredit

By: Julia Brown, Women's Initiative Research and Policy Assistant

 

Dennis Whittle talks about microcredit programs in the San Jose Merc.

GlobalGiving Chief Executive Dennis Whittle said: "There is no silver bullet in development and poverty reduction. Some things can be funded through microcredit and others need grants." To be successful, Whittle said, people need such basics as health care, clean water, education and transportation. The Web site lets you pick a project and see the results of your donation.

Then he blogs a clarification in the Huffington Post.

They are right about the appropriateness of charging market rates of interest for micro-credit in developing countries. But they are wrong to conflate that with charity or grants. In fact, subsidizing micro-credit via lower interest rates is usually a bad idea.

... There can be a healthy role for outside finance in micro-credit. Modern banks borrow through national and international bond markets all the time. There can even be a role for grants when micro-credit organizations are initially setting up operations, which can be very costly. Grants can also help bring excluded, vulnerable or traumatized populations into the micro-credit system. ... But overall, market-based financing works best for micro-credit.

I agree with Whittle up to a point. Microcredit programs that are market-driven are forced to streamline operations more than non-profit organizations that run on grants, and this of course makes them more sustainable.

However, the focus on profitability has led banks away from microcredit’s original focus on lending to the poor. Studies done in Bolivia showed that, as more microcredit banks established themselves in the same areas and began to compete with each other, the banks began to move away from serving the poor to serving people who were low-income but who were not the poorest of the poor.
Reaching the poorest of the poor, especially in rural areas, requires a great deal of overhead in terms of physically reaching the borrowers who may be widely scattered and maintaining the contact necessary to reduce default rates.

When microcredit banks begin to compete with each other, they tend to cut costs by dropping these very poor people from their portfolios. Without grants and subsidies, it becomes impossible to continue serving these populations. But the media tends to highlight only the fact that such agencies continue serving “the poor” without closely examining who these poor people are.

I of course agree with Whittle that grants are needed to provide the basic services (water, health care, etc.) before people can begin to take advantage of financial products. But I also think that there is a role for grants in generating the funds necessary to continue helping the poorest borrowers and savers take baby steps towards establishing themselves as legitimate financial services consumers.

Gender Issues Aren't Just About Women

By: Elizabeth de Renzy, Women's Initiative Researcher and Data Analyst

I found this post by Kathy Marshack on American Chronicle from our linkblog last month a little ... fluffy?
Marshack dicusses why "Women Business Owners Are Not Always Taken Seriously."

Women are not always taken seriously when it comes to running a business. I don't think that people are discriminating because of gender necessarily. It's probably more because they don't know how to relate to women business owners. Women have different values and these values are showing up in how women design their businesses.

I found the post a little hard to respond to because it had no focus in respect to issues and prescriptions. In addition, I felt a little annoyed by the lack of anything more substantial than anecdotal evidence.
It did make me wonder in a (disappointed) way, however, why the mainstream dialog on gender issues continues to focus on women. I don’t see how we can expect any real social change until we realize that gender inequality isn’t just women’s problem.

Wednesday Linkblogging

• Counter Intelligence blog quotes a New York Magazine article interviewing New York women chefs on why they don't get the money to open their own restaurants:

RC: Also, I’ve found that landlords will listen politely and then lease their space to a man with a track record. I had a long track record at the time I started Pearl Oyster Bar—twenty years as a chef, but not as a business owner. And that was the kind of track record they were looking for. I was lucky to find the guy that I found.

• If you want to talk to business owners like yourself: A yahoo group for Latina small business owners.
• The French foreign minister thinks that a microcredit fund in Myanmar (Burma), could help the cause of (capitalist) democracy. He doesn't propose where the money is to come from, though.
• A plea for Chinese microcredit aimed at rural people with HIV could well apply to any microcredit program anywhere in the world.

Up to three-quarters of China's estimated 650,000 people living with HIV/AIDS are rural poor, concentrated in Yunnan, Guangxi, Henan and Xinjiang. Microfinance can be an impressive tool for the social and economic empowerment of thousands of women, men and children living with HIV/AIDS, and their families. Measures must also be taken to counter discrimination against such people in microcredit programmes generally.

• And finally, an interesting article from the federal government's US Info site discusses a World Bank report on international reforms to encourage women in business.

In its recently released Doing Business 2008 report, the World Bank says countries ranked highest on its “ease of doing business” scale “are associated with higher percentages of women among entrepreneurs and employees.” The bank ranked 178 countries in such policy areas as paying taxes and entrepreneurs’ ease in obtaining licenses, registering property and getting credit. It also ranked countries’ investor protections, contract enforcement and cross-border trade laws.

The top reformers are Egypt, Croatia, Ghana, Macedonia, Georgia, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, China and Bulgaria.

Prop 209 Impact on Minority Businesses

By: Justina Cross, Women's Initiative Marketing Communications Manager

I went to a great symposium in Los Angeles on Friday looking at the impact of Prop 209 on government contracts with disadvantaged entrepreneurs (women and minority owned businesses) and the impact on higher education. You can get more information about this event at Impact209.org

When Prop 209 passed I had just moved to CA and was focused on how it affected affirmative action and outreach programs for minorities in higher education, so it was great to get a perspective on how it changed government contracting.

One of the stand-out papers presented was how there are ways to work around Prop 209 to still have race-conscious programs with government contracting. Tim Lohrentz (of Insight Center formerly NEDLC) presented about how businesses that benefited from the affirmative action programs adjusted their business plans and for the most part have been able to thrive despite Prop 209.

Where it might be hurting is for businesses trying to get into the contract game (some Women's Initiative graduates might be ready for this!) Bernida Reagan, Port of Oakland, presented at one of the sessions and mentioned Women's Initiative for Self Employment several times as an example of how the Port partners to have a program that worked with minority and women business owners. The Port has a Local Business Owner program which is how they get around the language of Prop 209 so that it isn’t creating goals around race or gender.

We know from outside reports that women and minority businesses are growing at staggering rates. In the South Bay we know Latino-owned businesses are really taking off. However, across the board we are dramatically underutilizing WBEs and MBEs and the symposium had quantitative and anecdotal information to illustrate this point. The symposium brought up for me what more we can do for our clients to let them know about government contracting beyond the seminars that we offer. Is there something more we can do with the Port of Oakland to get our clients on a trajectory to be vendors at the Oakland Airport? For some of our clients it is a matter of opportunity recognition about knowing what is possible for their business.

Another interesting talk was about how Prop 209 has negatively impacted the workforce where minorities are disproportionately employed in the public sector, especially education and public defense. The presenter argued that Prop 209 also created a diminished appreciation for diversity in the workplace as we moved to a “color-blind” model of hiring.  This is all great information to keep in our minds as we recruit and hire new employees.

Another presenter shared startling facts: 10 years ago CA had the largest number of black-owned businesses and now we are ranked third. Black families are moving from CA. Also in the 1980s Santa Clara had more black execs than any county in the nation, but today that isn’t true. Doesn’t this hit home to why our work with minority women business owners is so critical?

Globally things are happening around affirmative action, often called “positive action.”  I heard presentations about work that is happening in Brazil and France around creating race-conscious programs. I have a stack of papers (many academic, looking at different aspects of Prop 209’s impact) from the conference that I probably won’t be able to slog through.  If you are interested in seeing the material or hearing more, just email me.

Monday Linkblogging: Business Tips

• Reverse Turkey blog has a list of online resources for you to start your business. Do check it out!

• A Women's Place blog is suggesting that you get a start on next year ... now.

• This may be the last thing on your mind, but a recent WaPo article on Women business owners selling their businesses suggests you should be thinking about it now. A Center for Women's Business Research study found differences in how women and men business owners deal with selling their businesses and recommends:
  • Run a business every day as if it is for sale.
  • Be aware of your goals and parameters by knowing what is acceptable for you in a sale.
  • Don't publicize prematurely to employees and others that could be affected that you're considering a sale. When you're ready to sell, be decisive.
  • Get buyers' promises in writing and find a buyer who shares your vision. Include conditions of the business and the sale in the sales documents.
  • Develop your own investment and insurance portfolio separate from the business.

• The Orange County Register has an article on sexual harrassment in small businesses. The article makes the point that a small business can't absorb the costs of a sexual harrassment suit like a corporation can, and that just because you haven't heard any complaints, that doesn't mean that harrassment isn't happening right under your nose. Their advice:
  • Have a clearly stated policy against sexual harassment
  • Widely publicize it and rigorously implement it
  • Promptly follow up on all complaints

• NewsReleaseWire has an article on The Seven Commandments of Pricing. Read it even if you already know how to price your wares!

Wednesday Linkblogging

• Latina Style Magazine, for Latinas in business, presented the 2007 Latina Style Business Series Conference last Friday in Chicago. Check out the magazine and the Business Series website. Also check out the Latina Style 50, a conference/awards ceremony for the 50 best companies for Latinas to work for in 2007. The Latina Style 50 will take place on February 7, 2008.

• Also, check out the new Boston-based e-business website for--brace yourself--menstruation-positive products, called Kalily.com.

kalily wants to help young girls reach their individual potential. By recognizing a girls first period experience as a positive and empowering tradition, we can positivey impact a girls self image, who in turn, can positively affect her circle of friends, her community, society and then the world.

Menstruation has historically and to present day been viewed as a negative and taboo topic, one that has caused generations of young girls and women to feel shame towards themselves and their bodies. kalily believes that by changing this current ideology and opening the commnication channels, we can change the course of girls lives that can have positive outcomes throughout their lives.

Our mission is to empower young girls in order to set a positive footprint in their identies.To this end, we offer products and services that are positive and empowering. We will also grow a community of women, moms, mother figures, dads, father figures and girls - who can come together to share ideas, and learn from each other.

• The wonderful working women's website, workerette.com, has a profile of Lisa Barthuly, a home-based entrepreneur whose business satisfied her green living standards, and involves her home-schooled kids.

• Morethanweknow.com used last week's environmental blog action day to write about a green woman entrepreneur: namely Elizabeth Striano of A Green Footprint LLC. "Her company helps businesses implement sustainable solutions and reduce environmental impact."

Women in Progress magazine

A Women's Initiative graduate, Mieasha Harris, is publishing her own online magazine called Women in Progress, to help women find the resources they need to start their own businesses. She also regularly highlights up and coming business women in the Bay Area. Plus, one of her writers, Chiefo Chukwudebe, is also a graduate.

$50K Contest for Women in Biz!

UPDATE: Actually, it turns out that women in California, Maine, Tennessee, Utah, and Puerto Rico aren't eligible. Sorry!

A commenter was kind enough to turn us on to this Mirassou Winery contest "Make Your Dreams Come True with Mirassou."

Mirassou has been a longtime supporter of women-owned businesses over the past three years. Since obtaining capital is the No. 1 obstacle women face in starting their own businesses, Mirassou has created the "Make Your Dreams Come True with Mirassou" contest which provides $50,000 in seed money to help start a "Dream" business.

... The "Make Your Dreams Come True with Mirassou" contest is open to women who aspire to open a new business. To enter, applicants must submit a personal essay of 500 words or less describing themselves and why they think they would make a successful entrepreneur. A preliminary business plan will also be required and should include: 1) a description of the new business, 2) the consumer appeal to the new business, and 3) a plan to implement the new business.

Deadline is December 15, 2007!

Internet Securities' Small Biz Conference Next Week!

Some of you might be interested in attending this conference offered by Internet Securities. Please see the flyer below for more information.