The Women”™s Business Development Council was able to boast of some impressive feats during its annual Women-Owned Business Day event ”” even if the organization”™s funding “is in jeopardy this year.”
That statement was made by newly elected state Sen. Patricia Billie Miller (D-Stamford) during her introductory comments at the WBDC event, held virtually on April 21.
Speaking later with the Business Journal, WBDC founder and CEO Fran Pastore clarified the situation.
“Our funding is a line-item in the governor”™s budget and it was overlooked this year,” Pastore said. “But we have a lot of legislative support, including from the governor and particularly the lieutenant governor, and we have every confidence that (the funding) will be restored.”
The WBDC expects to receive $450,000 from the state, she said.
Though billed as the “seventh annual” Women-Owned Business Day, the event was canceled last year due to the pandemic. It is traditionally held at the state capitol. Pastore and other attendees expressed their hopes that it will return to Hartford in 2022.
In her own prefatory remarks, Pastore said that the organization had recorded a 600% increase in the number of clients (6,000) it saw during 2020. “Never in WBDC history have we witnessed this,” she said.
Historically, she added, when an economic crisis arrives, women are usually hit harder, as most women earn less than their male counterparts; single-parent households are headed by women; they disproportionately work at less secure jobs; and they have limited access to the kinds of resources that can help them and their small businesses weather the storm.
The creation of the WBDC Equity Match Grant Program, which the group administers with support from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, has raised over $525,000, with dollar-for-dollar matching funds contributed by the state government. Grants range from $5,500 to $10,000. The aim, Pastore said, is to help those businesses “not only survive, but thrive post-pandemic.”
This month the WBDC will award nearly $400,000 in grants to 44 businesses that are in all eight counties. She said 32% of those are minority-owned, noting that about 39% of the group”™s clients are minorities. Future rounds will be announced in the coming weeks, with the state again providing dollar-for-dollar matching funds.
Pastore also provided data on the WBDC”™s child care initiative, where most of the businesses are owned and operated by women of color. Working with the Governor”™s Workforce Council and the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, that initiative granted 106 child care centers with grants of up to $50,000 each, for a total of $1.6 million. Additional rounds for that program are also anticipated in the coming months, she said.
In addition, the group”™s Blue Stream program, dedicated to helping military spouses in New London County realize their entrepreneurial aspirations, provided education to 55 spouses and helped with the creation of four companies, and forged relationships with 14 regional military organizations.
Monica Nation, managing director, JPMorgan Chase Consumer and Community Banking, noted that the WBDC helped businesses apply and receive some $1.1 million from federal and state programs.
The bank is awarding $350 million over the next five years to grow Black, Latinx and women-owned businesses around the world, Nation said.
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, who said she expected the first round of the Equity Match Fund”™s grants to go “out the door shortly,” noted that 45% of all businesses in the U.S. are owned or co-owned by women. In addition, she said total employment at such businesses increased by 8% from 2014 to 2019, compared with 1.8% for all businesses during that period.
“It”™s up to us to build on this success,” she said, “and ensure that in 2021, all women-owned businesses are given the opportunity and platform to thrive.”
