Impossible as it seems, it has been only 30 years since the passage of HR-5050, game changing legislation that paved the way for women business owners to be recognized as a force in commerce and to gain access to the tools required to build strong businesses.
Back then, although women owned 25 percent of all small businesses in the United States, they got less than 1 percent of federal procurement dollars and were systematically denied commercial loans. "Our problem is access," said Gillian Rudd, then-president of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), which represented 4,000 women business owners. "We can't get into government and financial networks and we are asking for a strong commitment" from government, Rudd told a House committee yesterday. (Quote taken from an article in the Washington Post, April 27, 1988.)
It was Rudd and other members of NAWBO who, 30 years ago, led the charge in educating elected officials about the undeniable impact women-owned businesses played in the national economy. Their determined outreach led to U.S. Representative John LaFalce authoring The Women’s Business Ownership Act, which president Ronald Reagan signed into law on October 25, 1988.
To put the effects of this landmark legislation into context, here are some interesting statistics: In1988, 3.7 million businesses were owned by women in the United States, and they were hiring 60% of the newly employed. Today, women own an estimated 11.6 million businesses, employing nearly 9 million people and generating revenues of nearly $1.7 trillion!
It’s doubtful women business owners would have achieved these gains without the advocacy that led to HR 5050’s passage. Because of the determination, strength and hard work of these leaders:
- The need for a male relative or husband to cosign a business loan was erased. Prior to this legislation, in many states, women needed a male to cosign in order to acquire the capital needed to fund/expand their businesses. One woman who testified during six days of hearings on Capitol Hill at the time explained how her 17-year-old son had to cosign for her!
- This act required the Census Bureau to include women-owned c-corporations in their data, which expanded research beyond the self-employed into bigger firms. Before 1988, government agencies tracked mostly self-employed women, but overlooked larger woman-owned enterprises. Adding this information to the data sets was important to combat the assumption that women were creating items at home and selling on the weekends.
- It was recognized that women were subjected to discrimination as entrepreneurs, simply due to gender, and the Women’s Business Center program was established. These centers provide business education and a supportive environment. Today, 100+ centers have helped more than 2 million women start and expand their businesses.
- The National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) was created specifically to track women business owners and report back to government agencies. The organization conducts research and advances practical policy solutions to improve the business environment for women and expand opportunities. It performs qualitative analysis on large data sets and makes the information available to congress, the media, and others.
Although every woman business owner and those who aspire to entrepreneurship owe these pioneers a debt of gratitude, there is still much more work to be done. Opportunities for future engagement include:
- Expanding access to capital.
- Providing for research that assesses and meets the needs of women business owners.
- Targeting support to women of color and women in technology.
- Giving WBC’s the tools to create more of an emphasis on business expansion.
- Providing an avenue for more women involvement in procurement.
NAWBO will continue to press forward. “We need to stay engaged. We are just as responsible as those who represent us,” says Kathleen Warnick, NAWBO national board chair. “We must offer our policymakers sound ideas to continue moving forward and help them create policies that nurture a prosperous environment for all women-owned businesses.”
Article written by NAWBO Philadelphia member, Deborah Huberfeld, H.G. Services, Inc. - For Print That Performs!