SCORE Fairfield County now ranks among the Top 5 of all 230 SCORE chapters nationwide after a successful 2024 fiscal year, according to Fairfield County chapter co-chair Ashwini “Ash” Bhaskar.
Comprised of 112 volunteer professionals spanning a diverse scope of business experiences and industries, the Fairfield County chapter answered nearly 1,000 mentoring requests free-of-charge during the fiscal year which ended Sept. 30.
For the year 2,231 total mentoring sessions were conducted, a 3% increase over 2023 including 1,630 follow-on sessions resulting in a 73 percent increase year-over-year. This rate of increase was the highest for a SCORE chapter in all of Connecticut (the other five chapters serving the state are: Greater Hartford, New Haven, Eastern Connecticut, Western Connecticut and Northwest Connecticut).
“The high rate of follow-on is very impressive as it signifies that our chapter’s volunteers are not only making meaningful connections with their mentees but are delivering advice and insights which are helping entrepreneurs and business to overcome a variety of hurdles they encounter in their pursuit of success,” Bhaskar said.
He disclosed that the SCORE chapter’s combination of in-person and webinar workshops attracted the participation of nearly 6,000 Fairfield County small business executives – an increase of 27 percent over the previous year. By comparison, SCORE saw an 18 percent increase in such participation nationally. The chapter’s workshops covered a wide range of business-related topics including finance, cybersecurity, website creation, customer retention, marketing, e-commerce, SEO optimization and product exportation.
SCORE Fairfield County generated a 40 percent increase in the number of in-person business workshops it held during 2024 for a total of nearly 100 local events, compared to the previous fiscal year. Additionally, on-demand views for the chapter’s webinars soared by 21 percent in 2024.
Looking ahead to the new fiscal year, Bhaskar described a new ambassador program SCORE will kick off.
“To further benefit Fairfield County’s small businesses, we are aiming to increase our collaboration efforts through our new Ambassador Program with our existing town, chamber of commerce, library and educational institutions,” he said.
SCORE Fairfield County provides one-on-one mentoring to pre-startups, start-ups, entrepreneurs and established business owners and conducts in-person workshops and webinars focusing on the formation, growth and overall success of small businesses. It is part of the SCORE program administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The chapter serves small businesses and entrepreneurs in the following municipalities: Bethel, Brookfield, Danbury, Darien, Easton, Fairfield, Greenwich, Monroe, New Canaan, New Fairfield, Newtown, Norwalk, Redding, Ridgefield, Stamford, Wilton, Weston and Westport.
