By Terence Samuel
March 29, 2000: 8:53 a.m. ET
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - To judge the financial clout of American women, understand that consumer spending accounts for nearly 70 percent of all the activity in U.S. economy. And then understand that women account for 70 percent of the consumer spending in the United States.
But that financial clout has not always translated into economic power. Now, a few determined souls have set out to change that situation with a not-for-profit multimillion-dollar venture capital fund for women.
Nell Merlino, the New York communications executive who envisioned and built Take Our Daughters to Work Day, is on a mission to change the way women think about money.
"Access to credit and capital remains the number one issue raised by most self-employed and entrepreneurial women, no matter what their economic circumstances," Merlino said.
On Tuesday, Merlino helped launch Count-Me-In for Women Economic Freedom, described as an "opportunity organization that will raise capital from women, to be (lent) to women." It will provide small business loans of $500 to $10,000 to women who want to build or expand their own businesses. And the aim is to raise much of the money by small donations, as low as five dollars, from women across the country.
But they will have help. The organization is being supported by well-known companies like American Express, 1-800-FLOWERS, and BP Amoco.
"Women continue to have less access to financing for their businesses than male business owners do and women business-owners of color face even greater difficulty in gaining access to capital," Merlino said.
Marriane Spraggins, senior managing director of Smith, Whiley & Co., was the first African-American woman to be named managing director at a Wall Street firm, just a decade ago. Speaking at Tuesday's launch at the National Press Club, she said: "Women, I have found, are still intimidated by money and certainly large amounts of money." Spraggins said that while the Wall Street from which she comes deals in very large sums of money, the value of Count-Me-In is that is that it will not.
"The reality is that it is much easier to make a large loan than a small one because that is what the system is set up for, so that is what makes this so brilliant," Spraggins said, "A bank looks at what it costs them to process a loan, and so the $500 to $10,000 loan is meaningless to them."
Even in these economic boom times, women are not having as much as much fun at the party as men, said Merlino.
"With all the changes that have occurred, and all the work that has gone on in the women's movement and all around and this robust economy, 48 million, that is 80 percent of women in the work force, earn less than $25,000 a year," Merlino said, ".o.o. In 1998, $12 billion in venture capital was committed to new businesses; only 1.7 percent of those funds went to women business owners."
Count-Me-In will take advantage of the Internet. Loan applications will be made, processed and granted online at www.Count-Me-In.org. The first loan application will be accepted in June.
"The Internet has become one of the great equalizers in the financial market," said Jill Kianka, president and chief executive of FoolMart.com, an online e-commerce site. A member of the Count-Me-In advisory board, she said the effort could change the way women do business. "It is an amazing opportunity to harness both the power of the Internet and women's economic clout," Kianka said.
