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ACCIÓN San Diego
Serving small business owners since 1994, ACCIÓN
San Diego is a mission driven non-profit institution striving to
bring economic growth to local communities in Southern California.
The mission of ACCIÓN San Diego is to create increased income
and job stability for low-to-moderate income, self-employed men
and women. Through loans and business support ACCIÓN San
Diego helps these micro-entrepreneurs, primarily minorities and
women, strengthen their income, better provide for their families
and contribute to the development of their communities.
ACCIÓN San Diego’s loan program provides
small business owners with loans ranging from $300 up to $35,000,
along with free technical assistance, publicity and access to a
computer lab and resource library. With a full time staff of seven
and the support of three Americorp*VISTA volunteers, ACCIÓN
has lent over $8.5 million since its inception in December of 1994.
In 2005 alone, ACCIÓN San Diego disbursed over 230 loans
in excess of $1.48 million, and has maintained historical delinquency
and loss ratios of 5 percent.
Like Priscilla Branco, a Brazilian native
and an ACCIÓN success story, ACCIÓN’s client
base reflects Southern California’s rich diversity; approximately
60% of ACCIÓN San Diego borrowers identify themselves as
part of an ethnic minority group, and 45 percent of their clients
are women.
For more information on ACCIÓN San Diego, call (619) 685-1380
or visit http://www.accionsandiego.org.
Women's Economic Ventures (WEV),
Santa Barbara
The programs at Women’s
Economic Ventures (WEV) are rooted in the belief that the economic
empowerment of women will result in a more equitable and just society.
In 1991, with one full-time and one half-time employee and an annual
budget of $68,000, WEV’s microenterprise program began as a
four-week business orientation and peer lending program, providing
loans of up to $1,500 to low-income women. Today, with 13 full-time
staff, over a dozen independent contractors and an annual budget of
over $1 million, WEV offers a comprehensive 14-week, 56-hour self-employment
training program, individual and small group technical assistance,
mentoring, and networking opportunities to nearly 2,000 women and
men annually throughout Santa Barbara County.
WEV’s Small Business Loan Fund (SBLF) provides start-up loans
of up to $25,000 and expansion loans of up to $100,000 to pre-bankable
microenterprises. To date, WEV’s SBLF has made 59 loans to
pre-bankable microenterprises totaling $849,014 with an average
annual default rate of only 1.5%.
WEV’s comprehensive training, technical assistance, and loan
programs are critical to the survival and growth of countless business,
including Martin David Designs (read success story here) which received
a crucial $25,000 loan from WEV leading to the creation of five
new jobs and revenue increases of over 300%.
C.E.O. Women,
Oakland
C.E.O. Women is an organization dedicated to helping immigrant
women create economic opportunities for themselves and their families.
For four years now, this emerging microenterprise program has broken
new ground in the field by offering both microenterprise business
training and Vocational English as a Second Language to a segment
of the population that has been underserved by the existing entrepreneurship
training programs.
Farhana Huq, Founding Director of C.E.O. Women, developed her passion
for the microenterprise field as a CAMEO VISTA at a site in San
Rafael. When that program closed, Huq developed the Vocational ESL
model with the help of Catherine Marshall and Lynne Wilkins. “C.E.O.
Women owes a lot to CAMEO,” Huq says. Since its creation,
C.E.O. Women has grown from 12 clients to over 300! Huq adds: “We
are very excited that we were chosen to receive CAMEO’s Targeted
Training and Technical Assistance to help us build capacity to serve
more clients and offer more services.”
For more information, please visit C.E.O.
Women’s website or call (510) 879-2947.
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