[5 minutes]
Thank you, Natalie, for that warm introduction and for your incredible leadership on behalf of our nation’s women-owned small businesses.
It is so inspiring for me to be here with such an amazing group of women business leaders, I know that we will accomplish so much together in the months and years ahead.
Small businesses power our nation’s economy. And with women powering small businesses at an unprecedented rate – it’s no exaggeration to say that women are becoming the driving force of the American economy.
Which is why it’s so important for us to come together today to talk about what we can do to help women entrepreneurs not only recover and rebuild from this pandemic – which hit them and challenged them in so many ways – but also to thrive and prosper moving forward.
As President Biden has said: Equity is important for all of us. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it will help us build back better by creating jobs, growing our economy, and helping our nation compete globally.
At the SBA, we’re focused on reaching ALL our nation’s small businesses and innovative startups.
And we’re starting by clearing away the historic barriers to capital, markets and networks that have existed for far too long for women and people of color.
These barriers have been in place for a long time. Women and people of color have been held back by them for a long time. And while it may have taken a once-in-a-generation pandemic for some to recognize the existence of, as Vice President Harris calls them, these flaws and the fissures in our economy – they are persistent and long-standing.
Now, it’s up to us to get rid of them.
To do this, we’ve got to put ourselves in the shoes of the entrepreneurs who need our help. We need to go to them instead of waiting for them to come to us. We’ve got to make government trustworthy and accessible again.
We need to ask questions like: How are they getting the capital they need to run their businesses today? And for the millions of women and people of color in our country who are unbanked, how do we connect them with the traditional capital products we have to offer?
Or how do we introduce them to new markets? How do we help them do business with the world’s largest customer, the federal government?
We’re asking these questions across every SBA program and service, because if we’re going to achieve equity – accessibility is crucial.
We’re making progress.
I’m proud to say that in 2021, 96 percent of PPP loans went to small businesses with 20 employees or less – including many owned by women and people of color. This was due in large part, to the fact that we increased the participation of CFIs in this program, which well exceeded our goal and offered $34 billion in loans.
And we successfully rolled out our $28.6 billion dollar Restaurant Revitalization Program, giving businesses – grants, not loans -- to cover payroll, rent, utilities, supplies and more. This program has been especially important to women -- 40 percent of restaurants are either fully owned or partially owned by women – and more than half of the 278,000 applications came from women, veterans and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who were given a 21-day priority period to access the program by Congress in the American Rescue Plan.
This is just the beginning. We know we need to do much more to ensure we are connecting ALL our entrepreneurs to the resources they need.
At the SBA, we understand that it’s one thing to offer products and services – but it’s another for our nation’s entrepreneurs to know that they exist. We’re working hard to build bridges to those who have historically been left behind.
I’m really excited about the Community Navigator Pilot program, created by the American Rescue Plan, because it will help us reach beyond our traditional network to partner with trusted community and national organizations, who will then engage with groups on the ground that have direct access and connection to the small business owners who are in dire need of our help.
I liken them to the promotoras – that helped us get the word out about the Affordable Care Act.
Many of you could be those trusted organizations yourselves, so I encourage you to look at the details of this program at SBA.gov. We just extended the deadline to apply for funding to July 23, so make sure to find out more today.
And we’re leveraging the expertise of our Women’s Business Centers, including newly opened locations at five Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as our Veterans Business Opportunity Centers, our Small Business Development Centers and our entire spectrum of resource partners.
I’m so proud of the fact that with 135 Women’s Business Centers across the country and U.S. territories, we’ve created the largest network of women’s business centers in SBA history. But we’re not done. Under Natalie’s leadership, we’re planning further expansion of that network so we can reach even more women-owned businesses.
We need transformational change to drive economic growth – and that means we will be innovative – as entrepreneurial as the small businesses we serve – and we will put our customers-first, be technology forward and equitable – especially across our core lending programs for working capital and asset building.
We must engage with our customers, stakeholders and private partners to come up with workable financing solutions – and everything is on the table including direct lending by the SBA to the smallest businesses.
As you all know better than anyone, women, and women of color in particular, are the present and future of America’s small businesses.
Our job in government is figure out how help them do what they do best, drive our economy.
At the SBA, we’re focused on doing just that by being there for every women entrepreneur who needs us at whatever stage of the entrepreneurial journey they’re in. We want to better meet the needs of women-owned small businesses so we can better help them thrive. And we want to inspire future women entrepreneurs to build their American Dream or commercialize the next great idea.
Together, we can bring back those businesses devastated by the pandemic and long-standing inequities, and build back a more, vibrant, inclusive economy that works for everyone.