Support for Women Entrepreneurs in Arkansas

The Arkansas Women’s Business Center (AWBC) has closed our ninth year with a whirl of technical assistance offered to aspiring entrepreneurs. The AWBC is proud to report that this year we have assisted 106 new Arkansas woman-business owners, aided in the launch of 10 new minority woman-owned businesses, and helped clients gain access to over $150,000 in capital. Staff has expanded our focus area of women entrepreneurs to include veteran entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs, student entrepreneurs and more. 

In July the AWBC offered a welcome and training session for the Arkansas Economics REAL Conference. This conference is offered to Arkansas teachers who teach economics, entrepreneurship and career readiness to students in middle and high school. The AWBC director addressed over 150 educators on the importance of using as a teaching tool a one-page business plan called the lean canvas. The director also stressed the importance of great mentors and teachers to fostering free thinking and ambition in the next generation.

The AWBC continued to support our troops and joined the U.S. Small Business Administration in our third Boots to Business program. Boots to Business is a two-day training session for military personnel who are transitioning out of active duty and considering small business ownership as a career path. The AWBC training covered business imperatives such as proof-of-concept and the process of customer discovery interviews. 

August was a great month of outreach for the AWBC. Staff joined other entrepreneurial support organizations in Fort Smith, Arkansas, for the Arkansas Economic Development and Chamber Executives   Conference. The AEDCE Conference invited staff and other SBA resource partners to share AWBC’s success stories and the no-cost services we offer to entrepreneurs across the state. The AWBC also joined Arkansas Pulaski Technical College to welcome its new class of freshman at welcome week. The director of the AWBC shared her personal story of owning a small business in college and the freedom and pride entrepreneurship can give a young adult. 

In September, the AWBC received a nomination for a Minority Enterprise Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency. The AWBC was nominated during Minority Enterprise Development Week for its support of minority woman-owned businesses through its Momentum accelerator. Through this new program, AWBC addresses the unique barriers to entry for business creation faced by minority women. The completion of our first five-week accelerator led to the creation of ten new minority businesses in the state of Arkansas. 

Turning back to our passion of assisting the next generation, AWBC reconnected with our partners at El Dorado Upward Bound. Thanks to a generous grant from the Walmart Foundation, AWBC was able to train 50 high school students in how to launch their small business concepts. AWBC held three sessions to train youth in launching a business, marketing and branding and how to price products. Maintaining our support of the El Dorado area, AWBC held an evening training to support working entrepreneurs at the El Dorado Chamber of Commerce. The training session, called “Starting a Business in the State of Arkansas,” covered best practices for launching a business with nominal startup funds, such as how to file a business entity in Arkansas and how to acquire a business license and employer identification number.