Held at the Renaissance
Center, the National Women’s Business Council had a quarterly public board
meeting yesterday and DG3, along with other local businesswomen and
entrepreneurs, was in attendance. The meeting was informative and empowering,
and we learned about all they have been doing for women in the workplace, along
with hearing a couple of inspiring stories of women helping women right here in
Detroit.
Changing government
policies to help women secure funding easily, increasing the number of women
making investment decisions and improving outreach efforts to find women
entrepreneurs are just a few of the many things they have and are hoping to
accomplish. Through the council’s efforts and research, they have found that
women are doing more than ever before.
“Another great thing that
the council of research determined is that the number of patents obtained by
women in the U.S. is equal to men,” said Teresa Nelson, board member, Professor
at Simmons College School of Management and Director of the Entrepreneurship Program.
Below are a few quick stats
from the NWBC:
1.
The U.S. has
over 7.8 million women-owned businesses, earning $1.2 trillion in annual
r receipts.
2. An overwhelming
88.2% of these firms have no employees other than the owner, and 11.8% employ
over 7.5 million people and have annual median receipts of $210,000.
3. Women-owned
businesses account for 29.6% of all business and 17.5% of business and 20.2% of
business with employees.
4. The economic
impact of women-owned businesses have been estimated at $2.8 trillion, and more
than 23 million jobs.
In the next year, the NWBC
hopes to engage more entrepreneurship ecosystem stakeholders in the dialogue
and the solutions. These stakeholders include policy makers, leaders, media and
other influencers in the public, private and academic sectors.
The NWBC is a non-partisan
federal advisory council created to serve as an independent source of advice
and counsel to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Congress, and the White
House on issues of impact. For more information, and to get access to some of
the toolkits they have created for women business owners, visit www.nwbc.gov.
