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S.C. Women’s Business Center Announces First Year Results |
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COLUMBIA, SC – January 7, 2004 – The South Carolina Women’s Business Center (SCWBC) announced today the outcome of its work with entrepreneurs in its first year of operations. SCWBC counseled and/or trained 2,283 women who were starting new businesses or expanding existing ones in South Carolina. The Center also reported 2,028 hours of one-on-one counseling services provided to entrepreneurs, with more than 45 percent of those entrepreneurs working in the services sector. The second largest type of business represented in these counseling sessions was manufacturing at almost 25 percent. The data represents the time period October 1, 2002, through September 15, 2003.
SCWBC was formed by the S.C. Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) (www.scmep.org) to assist the 77,000 existing women-owned businesses in South Carolina, as well as new female-owned ventures. It is a grant-funded program awarded to SCMEP by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). In its initial year, SBA provided $135,000 in grant dollars for the program. For fiscal year 2003-2004, the grant has been increased to $150,000. SCMEP, headquartered in Columbia, SC, is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on helping manufacturers throughout the state by solving business and supply chain process problems. Supported by the state legislature and an affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST), SCMEP offers business and technology assessments, engineering expertise and lean manufacturing solutions to South Carolina manufacturers in search of a single solution for supply chain synchronization and internal optimization processes. |
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Funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The SC Women's Business Center is a program of the SC Manufacturing Extension Partnership, with management, oversight and support provided by SCMEP and its resources.