After a logjam in Congress this summer that put the Center for Women &
Enterprise Rhode Island in financial peril, a compromise measure has been signed
into law that provides $81,000 of the $125,000 in annual federal support the
center needed.
Combined with $31,000 produced by a fund-raising event Sept. 9, the money, which comes from the Small Business Administration, will ensure the center’s survival for the next year, director Carol Malysz said last week.
Some programs will still be cut back to make up the remaining shortfall, Malysz said, but the impact on the CWE is smaller than it could’ve been. She also noted that the SBA had given out grants based on each center’s performance, and the Providence agency got the largest possible amount.
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“In not the best-case scenario, we got the best outcome,” she said.
The CWE, part of a Boston-based nonprofit, has become a major resource for women entrepreneurs in Rhode Island. Since its opening in January 2000, it has helped 116 clients secure $13 million in business loans, according to Malysz. It has also provided technical assistance, training and mentoring to hundreds of Rhode Island women, and fostered the creation of 2,250 jobs with $65 million in wages.
The agency got its start with annual $150,000 SBA grants under a program for women’s business centers that provides five years’ worth of seed money. Until this year, a “sustainability” program – created by legislation sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 1999 – provided annual $125,000 grants for centers to continue their operations after the startup money ran out. But this year, conflicts among legislators and a change in focus at the SBA put 53 centers in danger of losing all their federal money.
The Rhode Island center, with a budget of about $507,000, faced double the uncertainty because along with the potential SBA funding loss, it didn’t know what to expect in state support.
On Sept. 15, the SBA notified the centers that Congress had passed a bill releasing about $4 million for sustainability grants. In a subsequent news release, SBA Administrator Hector V. Barreto said the success of women entrepreneurs “is an important priority for President Bush.”
As for the CWE’s $120,000 in state support, Malysz said, she’s been notified that a new policy requires her to submit a grant proposal to the Department of Administration; she was working on it last week, and wouldn’t speculate on the outcome.
Malysz said she’s still worried about future SBA funding as well.
“We know we have $81,000 for the next year, but we don’t know about the next four, so that’s an issue.”
