With its goal of making the American dream of business ownership a reality for all Americans, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) established a Women’s Business Center in Mississippi last September and another on in January 2021. The state had not had a center for several years even though there are a total of 135 WBCs nationwide. Currently there is at least one in each state with the exception of Alaska.
“Mississippi acquired a WBC in September 2020, awarding the grant to Alcorn State University and even more recently in January with the awarding of a second WBC grant to Jackson State University,” said Mississippi SBA District Director and Acting Regional Administrator for the Southeast Janita Stewart. “Both Alcorn and Jackson State are in the process of setting up the WBCs and should become operational in the near future.”
She explains that for 33 years the SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership has proudly empowered women to become entrepreneurs through the education, training and resources at Women’s Business Centers. “These centers seek to level the playing field for all women entrepreneurs who still face unique obstacles in the business world.”
At the centers the assistance is for women already in business seeking to expand and grow and for women who aspire to become entrepreneurs and need help starting up. “They simply need to reach out to the WBC where they wish to receive assistance and the WBC will take it from there,” Stewart said. “The assistance provided by the WBC is free and confidential as it is paid for by taxpayers. Although the targeted audience to provide service to are women, small businesses in general may also receive assistance there as well.”
The centers offer one-on-one counseling, training, networking, workshops, technical assistance and mentoring to women entrepreneurs on numerous business development topics, including business startup, financial management and procurement.
Due to the pandemic, Stewart says, the WBCs nationwide had to pivot and provide assistance virtually to do so safely. “SBAs’ other funded resource partners, including the SBDC, SCORE and the Veterans Business Outreach Centers are continuing to provide services through virtual training and counseling via webinars and similar events,” she added.
Stewart said statistics reflect there are 104,000 women-owned businesses in Mississippi representing a multitude of industries. “We want these and other women who aspire to become entrepreneurs to have a WBC available to them to assist with developing a business plan, marketing strategies, training opportunities, finding avenues for access to capital, certifications and government contracting information—just to name a few—and really just to be able to take advantage of all available resources to help women start their businesses, grow and expand. This of course will in turn help Mississippi grow.”
The SBA partners with host organizations for the Women’s Business Centers —Alcorn State University and Jackson State University in Mississippi. Other resource partners of the SBA — SCORE, America’s Counselors, the Veterans Business Outreach Centers and the Small Business Development Centers are stand-alone organizations that SBA funds. “With the exception of SCORE, which is a volunteer organization, SBA partners with each of these entities’ respective host institution,” Stewart said. “All of SBA funded resource partners provide free and confidential business counseling, training and technical assistance to small businesses and entrepreneurs throughout America.”
With the last two rounds of solicitations issued by the SBA seeking WBCs, a keen focus was targeting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and private non-profit organizations with 501C tax exempt status from the U.S. Treasury/Internal Revenue Service. “Noteworthy is that of the recent WBC awardees, five of them are to HBCUs and four of the five are in the SBA Southeast Region,” Stewart said.
The SBA’s Mississippi Districtserves the state with office locations in Jackson and Gulfport.
Article via Mississippi Business Journal
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