E-Magnify Attends "Empowering Women Entrepreneurs" Senate Hearing

E-Magnify's Education and Training Manager, Debra Mason, recently attended "Empowering Women Entrepreneurs," a Senate hearing hosted by the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee and held in conjunction with Women Influencing Public Policy’s annual leadership meeting in Washington, D.C. 

The Washington Bureau of the Business Journals reports on three things that Congress and the federal government could do to help women business owners: 

1) Enable more women business owners to access  capital.
"Women business owners have a harder time getting loans than men do. Women own around 30 percent of all small businesses, but they receive only 16 percent of small business loans, according to the committee’s report. In terms of dollars, women's share of business loans is only 4 percent."

2) Award more federal contracts to women-owned businesses.
"The federal government has never reached its 20-year-old goal of awarding 5 percent of all its prime contracting dollars to women. Failure to reach this goal has cost women business owners nearly $6 billion in contracts every year."

3) Increase funding to Women's Business Centers.

"Around 134,000 women business owners receive business training and counseling every year from the SBA's network of nearly 100 Women's Business Centers, which are operated by and partially funded by nonprofit organizations.

"But this program hasn't been reauthorized since 1999 and needs updating, the committee report concludes. It mostly needs more money -- government funding has remained flat even as the number of centers have grown."

Read the full article here.