Featured in StarTribune Business: WomenVenture expands its effort to help female-owned businesses
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Maxwell took over the space and started paying rent last December. But it took her until February to get all the requisite city licenses. Meanwhile, she struggled with start-up expenses, and she had fewer kids than she expected off the bat.
At WomenVenture, a staff business analyst and volunteer attorney vetted her business model, trained her to manage the books and loaned her $9,000 to cover several months rent and other expenses. The conclusion was Maxwell had the experience and capacity to grow the business. She just needed a cash infusion to get her through the first few months.
Roseanne Hope, a volunteer WomenVenture attorney, also helped Maxwell renegotiate her lease.
Wyatt, a former CPA and business manager, said Maxwell is an ideal candidate for WomenVenture, which has shed ancillary services in recent years to focus on the growing number of female entrepreneurs who boast experience and great work ethic, but not much capital.
“Yolanda was struggling a year ago,” Wyatt said. “She had only six kids in the day care. Now she’s at 28 and there are people vying for open spots.
“You don’t want to make a loan that makes a family’s situation worse. But we have stopped looking [just] at credit scores and assets. Some of these people don’t own houses. We look at the people. And household cash flow. We underwrote based on Yolanda, her business and her family. She had experience and character. We believe the business had the ability to pay the loan. We have many successful child care businesses in our portfolio.’’
This also is a smart move by Wells Fargo and the other financial institutions, corporate, foundation and individual donors who support WomenVenture.
A disproportionate number of start-up small businesses in the Twin Cities are headed by women and minorities, including immigrants, who are long on talent but short on capital. They are not “bankable” by federally insured depositories.
Banks and foundations fund outfits such as WomenVenture, Neighborhood Development Center, Northside Economic Opportunity Network, and other nonprofits that provide training and small operating loans to help the businesses develop. Most of them are located in frayed-edged, business-hungry cities, small towns and inner-ring suburbs.
“The growth and success of diverse-owned small businesses depends on the entire ecosystem of organizations that work with and support these businesses,” said Joe Ravens, Wells Fargo’s Minnesota president, who also lauded WomenVenture.
Wyatt said the Wells grant, its single-largest private grant ever, validates its approach.
“In Minnesota, women own 35 percent all small businesses, yet they access only 4 percent of all bank capital,” Wyatt said. “And while the number of African-American women-owned business has increased by 79 percent, the average median income for African-American Minnesotans has fallen 14 percent and the poverty rate has increased.
“We have an incredible opportunity to help these women start and grow profitable, sustainable businesses.”