The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Program will boost women entrepreneurs
We’re in a “shecession.” The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt us a major economic recession, stretching businesses and workers thin over the past year. But women workers and women-owned businesses, especially women of color, are in dire straits.
Black and Hispanic women have been hardest hit due to the enormous loss of work in historically female-dominated industries: leisure, education, child care and hospitality industries, among others. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that women made up 55 percent of the 20.5 million jobs lost in April 2020.
In Connecticut, women-owned businesses have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, forcing many business owners to choose between paying rent or making payroll, or whether to move their business online to stay open. It hasn’t been easy. Many of our smallest businesses are hanging on by a thread.
Relief in the form of PPP loans and small business grants, funded by federal dollars, have been lifelines to countless businesses across our state. For that, we’re grateful. But nationally, women business owners have been largely passed over when it comes to direct, targeted federal stimulus money.
Of the more than 60,000 Connecticut businesses that secured federal loans for COVID-19 relief, an overwhelming majority were male or white-owned: 78 percent were male-owned; 84 percent were white-owned; 7 percent were Asian-owned; 6 percent were Hispanic-owned; and 3 percent were Black-owned, according to the Women’s Business Development Council.
Over the past several months, we’ve met with women entrepreneurs to see firsthand the pandemic’s impact on Connecticut businesses. It was clear that we needed a financial vaccination to help stabilize a stormy economic climate that has impacted too many women entrepreneurs. But we must also commit to prioritizing women entrepreneurs in order to eradicate historically racist and sexist barriers to business success that their male counterparts have simply not experienced.
So together, we raised $525,000 from generous corporate and private funders to help womenowned businesses succeed. The Equity Match Grant Program, administered by the Women’s Business Development Council, helps entrepreneurs access the capital needed to build banking relationships, improve credit and overcome COVID-19 challenges.
The state Department of Economic and Community Development has been working tirelessly to provide financial support to businesses and nonprofits through grant and loan programs, like the $50 million CT CARES Small Business Grant Program. As part of their dedicated effort to boost small business growth, DECD immediately stepped forward to match our funds dollar for dollar, bringing the total amount of funds available in the Equity Match Grant Program to more than $1 million.
Over the next few weeks and months, we will continue to raise money from private and corporate funders, and DECD will continue to match these funds up to $1 million.
Funds from the Equity Match Grant Program can be used to purchase critical business assets such as the personal protective equipment needed to comply with reopening guidelines, or to pivot to an online business model, which will help increase revenue and improve cash flow. Grants between $2,500 and $10,000 may be given for clearly defined projects that will have a measurable impact on the business. You can visit ctwbdc.org for more information.
The Equity Match Grant Program is just one of the ways we can deliver much-needed support to women-owned businesses who have been hardest hit during this “shecession.” Going forward, we’re committed to finding more ways to provide an economic boost to make COVID-19 business challenges a little easier for Connecticut’s women entrepreneurs to weather.
It’s simple: supporting small businesses means greater economic growth. For every dollar spent at a small business, 67 cents stay in the local economy. A large part of our collective economic success depends on providing women of all backgrounds with more opportunity. Opportunity to start and expand their businesses, opportunity to improve and build credit, and opportunity for young women to acquire effective financial and business acumen. This is how we build an economy that works for everyone — because when women succeed, we all succeed.
The Equity Match Grant Program, administered by the Women’s Business Development Council, helps entrepreneurs access the capital needed to build banking relationships, improve credit and overcome COVID-19 challenges.
Susan Bysiewicz is Connecticut’s lieutenant governor and chairwoman of the Governor’s Council on Women and Girls. Fran Pastore is CEO of the Women’s Business Development Council, a not-for-profit organization that supports economic prosperity for women through entrepreneurial and financial education services.