By Jim Hopkins, USA TODAY
AUGUST 10, 2000
Following more than a decade of triple-digit growth, women-owned businesses
suddenly are in the financial spotlight. Behind the flurry of attention:
Lending. Today, Internet-based
non-profit Count Me In for Women's Economic
Independence announces the first of a series of micro loans to women-owned
businesses. The group, co-founded by Nell Merlino, creator of "Take Our
Daughters to Work Day," aims to create a loan fund with donations from
women across the USA.
Venture capital. Women-owned
businesses get 2.3% of all institutional investment dollars, according to a
survey last month by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. That's
despite the fact that 38% of all U.S. companies are owned by women, the foundation
says.
Driving the sudden interest: newly publicized data documenting the growth and
market prowess of women-owned businesses, and a realization among some lenders
and venture capitalists that these mostly small companies represent a business
opportunity.
"People don't want to overlook deals that have been overlooked before,"
says Diana Reid, marketing director for the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs. The
San Francisco non-profit helps women-owned high-tech start-ups get venture capital.
Count Me In's efforts are geared toward entrepreneurs such as Geneva Francais,
65, an Atlanta widow who stirs up Geneva's Splash, a vinegar-based sauce she
bottles by hand in her kitchen. Her target market is upscale grocery stores.
Francais, who will receive a $1,500 loan from Count Me In, turned to the New
York-based group because, she says: "A bank would not loan a woman money
when she's 65 years old. It's just as simple as that."
The group offers loans of $500 to $10,000. Terms are 6 months to 7 years, at
2 to 4 points above prime — 12.5%, at current rates. (First-time loans
must be $5,000 or less and repaid in 18 months or less.)
Conventional lender credit scoring works against women because it doesn't reflect
the unequal impact of, say, divorce on a woman's credit history, Merlino says.
Part of Count Me In's efforts involved the creation of a new credit-scoring
system. The group's loan pool has about $200,000. The bulk was raised this summer
over the Internet in donations averaging $15, Merlino says. The goal: a $10
million pool.
