Center for Women & Enterprise

CONTACT:

24 School Street, Suite 700
Boston, MA 02108
(617) 532-0222
www.cweboston.org/

Susan Rittscher, Chief Executive Officer

DESCRIPTION:

Founded in 1995, the Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE) is a regional entrepreneurial training organization with offices in Boston, Worcester, and Providence. CWE�s mission is to empower women to become economically self-sufficient and prosperous through entrepreneurship. CWE offers education, training, technical assistance and access to both debt and equity capital to entrepreneurs at every stage of business development, and from a wide variety of racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds�spanning the range from women in public housing who may want to start home-based or small retail businesses, to women running fast-growth technology businesses. As a benefit corporation, CWE provides its services on a sliding-scale basis in order to serve all women, regardless of their ability to pay. For low-income clients, CWE provides much more than business advice. Services include peer-modeling, networking, transportation to and from classes, child-care during classes, plus case management to ensure that any work/ life needs are provided during start-up and early growth of the businesses.

With a staff of 30, CWE has grown substantially. In addition to its entrepreneurial training center, CWE hosts the only venture capital forum for women on the East Coast, helping them to access capital markets. It also works with charter schools to train families how to be more fiscally prepared and has launched a training program to help dislocated workers consider entrepreneurship as a viable career path. They now annually serve over 2,100 women. Please offer your support.

(2000: HUMAN SERVICES: Girls and Women: General)