Start Us Up Coalition features bipartisan policy agenda for local, state, and federal policymakers to reduce barriers to entrepreneurship
In response to the economic crisis that has hit new and small business owners particularly hard, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) has joined the Start Us Up coalition — led by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and comprising more than 190 entrepreneurship advocacy groups and organizations across the country. NAWBO and Start Us Up are urging policymakers to take steps to address the immediate and long-term needs of entrepreneurs through the coalition’s COVID-19 crisis response plan, Rebuilding Better.
New and small businesses are at extreme risk in the COVID-19 crisis: between February and April this year, the number of business owners declined by a record 3.3 million, with Black and Latinx business owners being hit particularly hard.
“Rather than simply rebuilding the economy we had, with all its inequities, let’s use this moment to build the economy we want,” said Cristina Morales Heaney, NAWBO National Board Chair. “NAWBO is proud to join the national Start Us Up coalition to focus attention on what women business owners and small businesses need to survive now and come back stronger than before.”
The crisis response plan is a bipartisan roadmap for policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels that offers a framework for stabilizing the economy today, while helping to reshape entrepreneurship in the future, making it more accessible to those who have been historically denied the tools they need to start and grow a business. The agenda calls for, among other things, reforming business licensing procedures to reduce red tape and designating a share of the federal bailout dollars for the newest and smallest businesses.
“Large, established companies get the seats at the table, and we end up with solutions that make it easier for the big to get bigger,” said Kauffman Foundation President and CEO Wendy Guillies. “Meanwhile small firms – especially those led by women, minorities, and rural residents – are left behind and new ones can’t even start. We can rebuild better.”
The Kauffman Foundation’s 2020 State of Entrepreneurship findings show entrepreneurship being vital to the economic recovery but American entrepreneurs facing increased inequalities and barriers in being able to start new businesses. During the fallout of COVID-19, 68% of American entrepreneurs believed government was prioritizing big business over small business.
Even before the crisis took hold, women, people of color, and rural Americans faced unique hurdles to starting a business. Seventy-five percent of venture capital supports entrepreneurs in only three states: California, Massachusetts, and New York. Meanwhile, only 2% of venture capital flows to women-led firms, and just 1% to firms led by African-Americans. As result of these and other disparities, 15% of female entrepreneurs and 13% of entrepreneurs of color said it was easy to start a business, compared to 34% of male entrepreneurs.
The Rebuilding Better policy roadmap is divided into short-term and long-term actions and organized around the four core needs all entrepreneurs have:
• Funding: Equal access to the right kind of capital everywhere
• Opportunity: A level playing field with less red tape
• Knowledge: The know-how to start a business
• Support: The ability for all to take risks
Start Us Up is a diverse group of organizations working together to eliminate barriers to starting new businesses. For more information, visit StartUsUpNow.org.
Founded in 1975, NAWBO is the unified voice of America’s more than 10 million women-owned businesses representing the fastest-growing segment of the economy. NAWBO is the only dues-based organization representing the interests of all women entrepreneurs across all industries. NAWBO develops programs that help navigate women entrepreneurs through the various stages of their business growth. To learn more, please visit nawbo.org.
