Indiana AFN Women’s Entrepreneurship Event
Unlocking Assets: Building Women’s Wealth through Business Ownership
Small businesses play a large role in the American economy, especially in the Midwest. Women-owned businesses have experienced more growth over the last five years (21%) than all small businesses combined (9%). Women-owned businesses:
- account for 42% of all businesses,
- successfully produce $1.9 trillion in revenues, and
- employ 9.4 million workers.
Despite this impressive growth for women-owned firms, a dramatic wealth gap persists when comparing the wealth built by male vs. female-owned firms. While Northern Indiana has a growing entrepreneurship culture, disparities remain for women, particularly women of color, to succeed in founding and growing their businesses. Gaps in access to capital, insufficient social networks, and bias are all factors that make it hard for women to benefit from wealth building opportunities.
Join us and our partner organizations on November 21st as we discuss system-wide challenges and design more integrated solutions.
When: Thursday, November 21, 2019 at 9:30 am – 2:00 pm ET
Where: Saint Mary’s College, Rice Commons, Student Center, South Bend, Indiana, 46556
Who:
- Funders & investors: foundations of all types, financial services organizations, and investors
- Civic leaders, stakeholder groups, and business owners working on entrepreneurship capacity building for women via incubators, accelerators and/or mentorship
Goals of Event:
- Delve into the existing landscape of women-led companies.
- Explore the systemic barriers impeding women’s ability to build wealth through business ownership.
- Suggest strategies which grant-makers, policy advocates, business owners and practitioners can support to enable women to build sustained wealth through business ownership.
Featured Speakers:
- Nicola Brown, SoGal Foundation, Indiana chapter lead
- Kathy Burnette, Founder, Brian Lair Bookstore
- Molly Martin, Director, New America
Download the Conference Presentations
Organizers:
