The future of funding for Women’s Business Centers across the nation could be decided as early as next week, as the U.S. Senate gears up for a vote on the Women’s Center Sustainability Act of 1999. The bill passed the House two weeks ago. Initially conceived by Congress in 1988 as a grant program, the Women’s Business Center Program now includes 58 separate centers. Each center operates under a five-year $150,000 annual grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration and private funds. If the new legislation is not approved, the centers would be forced to become self-sufficient.
But with the threat that self sufficiency would mean a significant cutback in staff and programming, according to Women’s Center officials, lawmakers are looking to change the law to allow for further government funding of the centers..
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“The Women’s Business Center Program has grown beyond our most optimistic dreams,” said Senator Christopher Bond, D-Missouri, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business. “This bill is designed to establish a long-term commitment to support successful women’s business centers. It also will allow current and past Women’s Business Centers to re-compete for a second, five-year grant commitment from the Small Business Administration. ”
The centers were created to provide skills training, counseling, mentoring, education and outreach to women and their business.
“The Women’s Business Centers have a strong reputation for providing sound guidance, knowledgeable insight, and support to women who wish to start small businesses,” Bond said. “I’m committed to moving the bill through quickly and have strong support from my colleagues.”
The federally funded program is one of a handful of programs charged with supporting female entrepreneurs and fostering the growth of women’s business ownership. The Center For Women and Enterprise scheduled to open in Providence this January was funded through the program in 1999, and the Boston office was funded almost five years ago.
Andrea Silbert, chief executive officer and founder of the Center for Women and Enterprise in Boston, said the funding is crucial to the future success of her center, whose five-year grant period ends June 30, 2000. According to Silbert, the federal funding makes up about 25 percent of the center’s $600,000 annual budget.
“The funding is a critical element of this legislation,” she said. “Five years ago I founded the center with this grant and now I would like to continue running it with this legislation. We can’t afford to lose this funding. We would have to cut staff and programming to make ends meet.”
Silbert, who also serves as president of the Association of Women Business Centers said though the original legislation was drafted with expectations that after five years each center could be self-sufficient, that isn’t happening. She said many of the centers that have been labeled self sufficient are only able to do less.
“In this day and age it’s nearly impossible (to get funding). Because of all the corporate mergers there are fewer philanthropic donations,” she said. “A lot of women’s business centers are funded by banks, and with the constant mergers, the funding is in short supply.”
The Center For Women and Enterprise serves about 1,000 business women a year, Silbert said. According to a study by the National Foundation for Women Owners and Dunn and Bradstreet, there are now 7.7 million women-owned firms, about 32.7 percent of all business in the United States. The Small Business Administration predicts that by the beginning of the 21st century, women will own 50 percent of the small business in the United States, demonstrating a real need for Women’s Business Centers.
Silbert said she has been working with Senator John F. Kerry, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Small Business Committee and a leading proponent of the bill.
“Providing services to the economically disadvantaged women opens the doors of opportunity to full business ownership and participation while contributing to the economic well being of our country,” he said in a statement. ” Women Business Centers provide critical services that strengthen families and communities, while eliminating the remnants of discrimination which still exist against women in terms of full economic participation”
Still, Silbert said, the current legislation is only a pilot program, so even if it passes there is still more work to be done.
“I think it’s great that it passed the House,” she said. “But it’s one of those things that has to go all the way to have any impact. The approval by the Senate will have a great impact, but we still need to look ahead.”
