AnewAmerica and Centro Community Partners (Centro) have come together to launch a new program addressing the needs of low-income entrepreneurs in Santa Clara County. Together we will offer entrepreneurship and financial literacy workshops geared primarily towards women and minorities, fully funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Our main goal is to provide participants with the technical assistance they need to succeed in their businesses, and give them access to the capital and mentorship services they will need to fuel and sustain their own goals. In parallel, we are also aiming to introduce participants to vetted financial products that have proven to be successful in building assets within underserved communities.
In this new partnership, we will be responsible for leading our Basic Entrepreneurship Program in two formats (9-week program and 1-day bootcamps) and reach approximately 120 low-to-moderate income entrepreneurs. Centro will also offer these programs in both English and Spanish.
While Centro will co-facilitate the entrepreneurship training portion of the project with AnewAmerica, our partners will offer their expertise and curriculum for financial fundamentals and introduce participants to fitting financial products such as Kiva USA micro-loans, savings match accounts, peer lending circles and pre-paid debit cards - all catered to help them improve their financial health.
As part of the project, AnewAmerica and Centro will also jointly host a hack-a-thon for small business entrepreneurs and techies to come together and solve business problems using technology.
The training programs are open to any gender, but the majority of the program participants are expected to be low-to-moderate income women and minorities from underserved communities in San Jose.
OVERALL GOALS & IMPACT
- 120 participants in eight nine-week business development and asset building trainings, and four one-day bootcamps, half of them led in English and the other half in Spanish.
- 100 participants registered to receive on-going and one-on-one coaching from AnewAmerica.
- 10-20% of the participants accessing at least one financial product, such as a microloan, a matched savings account or a lending circle.
- 10 participants pitching their idea at a hack-a-thon.
FIRST TRAINING PROGRAM
The first 9-week training program will start the second week of March. It will meet weekly on Mondays (in English) and Wednesdays (in Spanish) from 5 - 8 pm at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Library (3rd Floor) in San Jose. The cost is $75 per participant.