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May 13, 2024 SBA Awards: Women’s Business Center of the Year

2024 SBA Awards: Women’s Business Development Council/Southwest Women’s Business Center

Women’s Business Center of the Year: Women’s Business Development Council/Southwest Women’s Business Center  Check out the other 2024 SBA Award winners
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Q&A talks with Erin Mercede, program director of the Southwest Women’s Business Council.

Can you describe your organization?

The Women’s Business Development Council (WBDC) is a nonprofit SBA resource partner that provides the tools and resources to help women start and grow businesses, resulting in the creation and maintenance of sustainable jobs and businesses across Connecticut.

We offer classes and business advising (most at no cost) to entrepreneurs on topics including finance, marketing, and business management. We serve entrepreneurs across all industries and stages, and have specialized programs to support the unique needs of child-care providers and food entrepreneurs.

Our clients are predominantly main street businesses that are the lifeblood of their communities.

Check out the other 2024 SBA Award winners

How did the Women’s Business Development Council come about?

The WBDC was founded in 1997 by our current CEO, Fran Pastore. She began the organization in response to her discovery that Connecticut was one of the few states in the country that did not have a resource to support women entrepreneurs in their journeys to launch and scale small businesses.

We started with one office in Stamford, and have expanded to four total offices statewide. We are grateful to accept the SBA award for our Stamford office, which serves women entrepreneurs throughout Fairfield and Litchfield counties.

How has your organization grown in the past year?

The WBDC has seen tremendous growth in recent years. In 2023, our Stamford Women’s Business Center served 801 clients (150% increase over 2019), helping them access $1.43 million in capital (191% increase over 2019), support or create 1,160 jobs (65% increase over 2019), and start 15 businesses (50% increase over 2019).

This growth has been driven by the organization’s desire to empower as many women entrepreneurs as possible.

This led the WBDC to launch two groundbreaking initiatives. Our Child Care Business Support Program (a partnership with the CT Office of Early Childhood) offers entrepreneurial training and grants to child-care providers across Connecticut.

We also launched the Ignite and LaunchPad grant programs, which are focused on getting more capital into the hands of women-owned businesses, both startups and established businesses. Through both initiatives, we provided $3.07 million to 331 businesses across the state last year, including $1.02 million to 117 clients in Fairfield and Litchfield counties.

As a result, we are the preeminent resource for women entrepreneurs in the state, and we serve as a model for Women’s Business Centers around the country.

What’s a major challenge your organization has overcome in the past year?

Hiring was a tremendous challenge last year, a consequence of our very strong growth. Across the organization, we’ve experienced a 260% increase in women seeking our services as compared to 2019.

Our new team members are excellent additions to our staff, but finding qualified candidates who embodied the spirit of the organization was challenging in Connecticut’s tight labor market.

Our other challenge is in diversifying our client base, which we continued to do in 2023. In 2023, 47% of our clients were people of color, compared to 36% of the state’s population. Twelve percent of our clients were Spanish speaking, compared to 10% of the state’s population.

We would like to grow these rates, and are doing this by partnering with more organizations who are serving these populations.

What major strategic plans do you have in the next few years?

We want to increase our reach to more women entrepreneurs across the state, specifically among people of color, the Spanish-speaking community, and those in underserved communities. Though we are the preeminent resource for women entrepreneurs in Connecticut, there are too many who don’t know about our services and grants.

Check out the other 2024 SBA Award winners

Industry: Nonprofit

Top Executive: Fran Pastore, Founder & CEO

Headquarters: Stamford

Annual Revenue: $7.6M

Employees: 35

Website: www.ctwbdc.org

Contact: Erin Mercede, emercede@ctwbdc.org; 203‐836‐3473

 

 

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