The U.S. Small Business Administration San Diego District Office has opened a new Women’s Business Center on Southwestern College’s Higher Education Center at National City.
The new center is designed to help women entrepreneurs start and grow small businesses; the center will provide assistance and resources to women entrepreneurs in San Diego and Imperial Counties.
“The program is really to help women entrepreneurs in particular to start businesses and to grow their existing businesses,” said Daniel Fitzgerald, associate regional director for the small business development center.
The center opened May 1 and was supposed to have a ribbon cutting earlier this month with U.S. Small Business official –and cabinet member- Linda McMahon but a scheduling issue cancelled the ceremony, Fitzgerald said.
In its first month of operation, the center has already helped about 25 women entrepreneurs, with five of them starting their own business.
All Women Business Centers, including the one at SWC’s National City campus, are funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration to be able to provide services such as business advising, one-on-one business counseling, training, networking, workshops, technical assistance and mentoring to women entrepreneurs on numerous business development topics, including business startup, financial management, marketing and procurement.
Most of the services are offered at no charge. Some services are offered at-low cost to cover the cost of the curriculum. Participants in the program do not have to be SWC students, Fitzgerald said, the person just has to be doing business in the United States.
The U.S. Small Business Administration Women’s Business Centers are a national network of more than 100 centers. In fiscal year, 2017 the Women’s Business Center program counseled and trained nearly 150,000 entrepreneurs nationwide.
Fitzgerald said Women Business Centers have proven models of success. He said the center in Santa Barbara has shown that more than 40 percent of their participants have been able to raise their income levels quite substantially.
With the success these centers have on women across the nation, Fitzgerald said he is eager to see the impact SWC’s newest business center will have on the local community.
“Historically, women have more difficulty in particularly accessing capital or being able to expand their businesses and things like that,” he said. “And these programs exist to help them overcome those obstacles.”
