Small Business Loans For Women
An old wives’ tale (or old boss’ tale, if you ask me), has it that there’s two ways to dress for success in the office. If you have a male boss, wear blue, because it tells him that you have brains. If you have a female boss, wear red, because it tells her that you can take the heat. But when you start your own business, you need to be able to take the heat and have brains!
In recent years, women in the United States have made their presence known at the CEO round table - with women owning 38% of businesses in the United States. The United States has responded by offering venture capitol for encouraging more women to choose this path, by offering special small business loans for women and minorities. So, all that remains there is to choose the organization that supplies these loans. You should also improve your knowledge on loan fraud and ten ways to protect yourself.
A United States organization called the Small Business Administration (SBA) offers small business loan programs for women who are starting a business for the first time. All it takes is a small one-page application to get started, be a woman, a minority group, or a veteran, and this program can get you a loan of up to $150,000. Preference is given for women from low and middle income backgrounds, however this only dictates their orger of approving loans.
CAPLines is another program to offer five different kinds of loans to start a business. They provide funding especially for the construction of a commercial establishment. These are short-term working capital loan programs which can amount up to $200,000. Other government loans worth keeping an eye out for include 504 loans, Defense loans, Technical loans, Community Adjustment and Investment loans, Export Working Capital Program and International Trade Loan. All of these have special programs just for female entrepreneurs.
Another organization is the Women’s Business Grants group. This specialized organization offers small business loans to women to support both new and existing businesses. Their two programs are the New Business Grant, which can net from $100 to $5000, and the Existing Business Grant, which has higher sums of $1000 to $5000.
The new programs starting up are an acknowledgment of the growing importance of women business-owners in a balanced global marketplace. Here’s a lender that stand above most others for reliability and versatility in lenders.
September 1st, 2007 at 7:26 pm
[…] The smaller business individual may face problems raising a business loan. Initially, no organizations wanted the risks involved with lending to a small business. While on the subject of small business loans, here’s a descriptive article on small business loans for women. Grants were offered by the Federal government, but these required a lot of paperwork to obtain and then to maintain. Eventually, major financial institutions like American Express, Mastercard, and Visa saw the opportunities of offering customers B2B business loans. These organizations were already servicing individuals with unsecured credit cards. […]