U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

35–071 WASHINGTON : 2019

SUPPORTING AMERICA’S STARTUPS: REVIEW OF 

SBA ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 27, 2019 

Small Business Committee Document Number 116–006 

Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov 

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Congress.#13
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

NYDIA VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman 

ABBY FINKENAUER, Iowa 

ANDY KIM, New Jersey 

SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas 

JARED GOLDEN, Maine 

JASON CROW, Colorado 

JUDY CHU, California 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania 

BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York 

ANTONIO DELGADO, New York 

CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania 

VACANT 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Ranking Member 

AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American Samoa, Vice Ranking Member 

TRENT KELLY, Mississippi 

TROY BALDERSON, Ohio 

KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma 

JIM HAGEDORN, Minnesota 

PETE STAUBER, Minnesota 

TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee 

ROSS SPANO, Florida 

JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania 

ADAM MINEHARDT, Majority Staff Director 

MELISSA JUNG, Majority Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

KEVIN FITZPATRICK, Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Hon. Nydia Vela ́zquez ............................................................................................. 1 

Hon. Steve Chabot ................................................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Charles Rowe, President & CEO, America’s Small Business Development 

Centers, Arlington, VA ........................................................................................ 4 

Ms. Corinne Hodges, CEO, Association of Women’s Business Centers, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 6 

Mr. W. Kenneth Yancey, Jr., CEO, SCORE Association, Herndon, VA .............. 8 

Ms. Cherylynn Sagester, Veterans Business Outreach Center Program Director, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA ....................................................... 9 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

Hon. Jim Hagedorn .......................................................................................... 28 

Mr. Charles Rowe, President & CEO, America’s Small Business Development Centers, Arlington, VA ....................................................................... 29 

Ms. Corinne Hodges, CEO, Association of Women’s Business Centers, 

Washington, DC ............................................................................................ 37 

Mr. W. Kenneth Yancey, Jr., CEO, SCORE Association, Herndon, VA ...... 46 

Ms. Cherylynn Sagester, Veterans Business Outreach Center Program 

Director, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA ....................................... 62 

Questions and Answers for the Record: 

Question from Hon. Brad Schneider to Ms. Corinne Hodges and Answer 

from Ms. Corinne Hodges ............................................................................. 65 

Question from Hon. Brad Schneider to Ms. Cherylynn Sagester and Answer from Ms. Cherylynn Sagester ............................................................. 67 

Additional Material for the Record: 

None. 

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SUPPORTING AMERICA’S STARTUPS: REVIEW 

OF SBA ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT 

PROGRAMS 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2019 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:08 a.m., in Room 

2360, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Nydia Vela ́zquez 

[chairwoman of the Committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Vela ́zquez, Finkenauer, Kim, Davids, 

Golden, Crow, Veasey, Evans, Schneider, Espaillat, Delgado, 

Houlahan, Chabot, Balderson, Hern, Stauber, Spano, and Joyce. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Good morning. The committee will 

come to order. 

It is a pleasure to have all of you testifying before our committee 

this morning. I applaud you for your leadership on behalf of America’s small businesses. 

America’s 30 million small businesses are the cornerstones of our 

communities. When a Main Street business succeeds, not only do 

hard-earned dollars get reinvested back into our neighborhoods, we 

also see robust job creation and innovation. 

But we all know that launching a small business is no task for 

the faint of heart. When it comes to turning a great idea into a 

thriving business, unfortunately, many entrepreneurs face a series 

of challenges. 

To break down these barriers, the SBA fosters a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem, one that offers free or low-cost counseling and 

training to entrepreneurs across the country. Whether it is helping 

to create a business plan, navigate the procurement process, market a new product, or identify trade opportunities, the SBA, 

through its resource partners, offers a wide range of services to 

help small businesses succeed. 

The SBA relies on four main partners to deliver these services— 

Small Business Development Centers, or SBDCs; Women’s Business Centers, or WBCs; SCORE; and Veterans Business Outreach 

Centers, or VBOCs. Today, we are fortunate to be joined by their 

leaders. 

Entrepreneurial development initiatives are proven to be a great 

return on investment. Studies have shown that aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners who receive counseling and 

training are able to increase sales and create more jobs. They are 

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even proven to be more viable in the long term with those receiving 

3 or more hours of counseling having higher 1-year survival rates. 

Every year, SBA’s resource partners assist more than one million 

entrepreneurs, creating roughly 80,000 jobs. And for every dollar 

invested between 2012 and 2017, SBDCs returned $5 in revenues 

to federal and state governments. 

But, behind these numbers are very real experiences of hardworking entrepreneurs. Let me share with you the story of 

DogSpot, a woman-owned small business in Brooklyn, New York. 

Chelsea Brownridge was reluctant to take her high-energy terrier for a walk when she ran errands in Brooklyn. Realizing that 

other dog owners must face similar challenges, Chelsea got to work 

on developing a state-of-the-art doghouse for pet owners to safely 

and comfortably house their pets while shopping. 

For advice and assistance, Chelsea turned to the Brooklyn Small 

Business Development Center, which helped her secure $3.2 million in capital and hire 10 employees. Now, she is preparing to expand DogSpot to more cities nationwide. 

At today’s hearing, I hope to hear similar success stories. However, I am also eager to learn more about what must be improved. 

While I commend each one of you for collectively serving over a 

million entrepreneurs per year, there are still more than 28 million 

small businesses that are not utilizing these services. Today, I 

would like to learn what more can be done to raise awareness for 

SBA counseling and training programs to ensure we are reaching 

as many entrepreneurs as possible. I also have concerns over the 

administration’s past proposals to significantly reduce funding for 

these programs. Fortunately, there was a bicameral, bipartisan 

push this year to restore the proposed cuts. Providing robust levels 

of funding for these programs is essential to their success. 

Having said that, we must also ensure that taxpayer resources 

are being used wisely and to the maximum effect. That is why this 

committee has long pushed for clearer metrics and accountability. 

I would also like to hear our panelists thoughts on ways we can 

better measure the results of these valuable counseling and training programs. 

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and 

we should provide our entrepreneurs with the critical resources 

they need to succeed. I am eager to hear ideas today on how we 

can improve SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs and better serve America’s innovators. 

With that, I thank each of the witnesses for joining us today and 

look forward to your testimony. 

I would now like to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot, 

for his opening statement. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I apologize 

for running a little bit late there. I was in Foreign Affairs and our 

former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, and I was the next 

questioner and I had been there an hour, so again, I apologize for 

anything, my phone going off. 

Time and again, this Committee has lauded the importance of 

small businesses to the American economy. The impact that over 

30 million small firms has on our nation simply cannot be overestimated. Given the vital nature of small businesses providing reSBR002 with DISTILLER

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sources that help entrepreneurs and small business owners succeed 

must be a priority. The Small Business Administration’s, or SBA’s, 

Entrepreneurial Development programs provide those important 

resources. 

The SBA Entrepreneurial Development programs include Small 

Business Development Centers, or SBDCs; the Service Corps of Retired Executives, or SCORE; Women’s Business Centers, or WBCs; 

and Veterans Business Outreach Centers, or VBOCs. 

These programs provide small business owners and entrepreneurs with technical and managerial training related to creating, running, and scaling a small business. While collectively 

these programs have provided business training and counseling to 

more than 1.5 million individuals in Fiscal Year 2017, each SBA 

Entrepreneurial Development Program is tasked with offering a 

unique and tailored curriculum. 

The SBDC program is the largest and highest funded Entrepreneurial Development Program, with nearly 1,000 locations all 

across this country, and provides a broad range of business counseling and training aimed at meeting the needs of both startup entrepreneurs and existing small business owners. 

While SBDCs focus on counseling and training, SCORE is tasked 

with providing mentorship. With roughly 800 locations nationally 

and over 11,000 volunteer mentors, SCORE seeks to pair entrepreneurs or business owners with a SCORE mentor who can offer 

specific and tailored business guidance. 

The WBC program provides business training and counseling 

specifically tailored to meet the needs of women entrepreneurs, 

often proving long-term training courses on nights and weekends 

at their 100 plus locations. 

Finally, VBOCs are responsible for providing entrepreneurial resources and transition assistance to our nation’s veterans through 

both 20 center locations and other military locations throughout 

the country. 

Each of these Entrepreneurial Development programs plays a 

specific role in ensuring that our nation’s small business owners 

have the resources they need to be successful. 

Today’s hearing will allow us to the opportunity to learn more 

about these programs and how they serve America’s entrepreneurs, 

while allowing us to ask appropriate questions, what is working 

and what needs to be improved within these programs. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and having a productive conversation. 

And again, I thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I yield back. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. 

And if committee members have an opening statement prepared, 

we would ask that they be submitted for the record. 

I would like to take a minute to explain the timing rules. Each 

witness gets 5 minutes to testify and the members get 5 minutes 

for questioning. There is a lighting system to assist you. The green 

light will be on when you begin, and the yellow light comes on 

when you have 1 minute remaining. The red light comes on when 

you are out of time, and we ask that you stay within the timeframe 

to the best of your ability. 

I would now like to introduce our witnesses. 

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Our first witness is Mr. Charles ‘‘ Tee’’ Rowe. Mr. ‘‘ Tee’’ Rowe 

is the president and CEO of America’s SBDC, the association representing Small Business Development Centers. He joined America’s SBDC in 2009 after serving at the Small Business Administration, first as the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation and 

Regulation, and then as the Associate Administrator for Congressional Administrative Affairs. Prior to that Mr. Rowe was a Counsel here at the House Small Business Committee for 6 years, as always welcome. 

Our second witness is Ms. Corinne Hodges. Ms. Hodges is the 

CEO of the Association of Women’s Business Centers. Prior to joining the association in January 2019, Ms. Hodges led the public relations team for Kia Motors Manufacturing in Georgia. She is also 

an experienced small business owner. Ms. Hodges helped at her 

mother’s woman-owned trucking company in Michigan, and also 

ran her own advertising and public relations agency. Welcome. 

Our third witness today is Mr. Kenneth Yancey. Mr. Yancey is 

the Chief Executive Officer at SCORE where he has led the nation’s largest network of volunteer expert business mentors for 

more than 25 years. Before taking the leadership position at 

SCORE, Mr. Yancey was the Executive Director of the National 

Business Association. Recognized as one of the leading experts on 

small business, Mr. Yancey is a frequent contributor of many radio 

and television shows on the topics of entrepreneurship, small business trends, and volunteerism. Welcome. 

And now I will yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot, to introduce our final witness. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I would like to introduce today’s final witness, Ms. Cherylynn 

Sagester. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Thank you. Ms. 

Sagester serves as the Director of the Veterans Business Outreach 

Center at Old Dominion University. The Old Dominion VBOC provides eligible veterans from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and 

West Virginia with entrepreneurial training and counseling as a 

part of the University’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the Old Dominion VBOC, Ms. Sagester had 

roughly 2 decades of experience in business and economic development within both the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and we 

thank you for joining us this morning. 

I yield back. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. And now we recognize Mr. Rowe for 

5 minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF CHARLES ROWE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

AMERICA’S SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTERS; 

CORINNE HODGES, CEO, ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN’S BUSINESS CENTERS; KEN YANCEY, CEO, SCORE ASSOCIATION; 

CHERYLYNN SAGESTER, VETERANS BUSINESS OUTREACH 

CENTER PROGRAM DIRECTOR, OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES ROWE 

Mr. ROWE. Thank you, Chairwoman Vela ́zquez, Ranking Member Chabot, members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me 

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to testify on behalf of America’s Small Business Development Centers. 

For 40 years, SBDCs have been providing services to small business owners, focusing on one-on-one advising to improve their businesses. 

As Mr. Chabot said, we have a network of over 975 locations 

with 4,000 dedicated professionals who assist hundreds of thousands of small businesses nationwide. 

We operate primarily through colleges and universities, and the 

SBDC hosts manage the networks and subcenters and provide 

matching funds. 

We serve small businesses at all stages. The mix is about 60/40, 

60 percent existing, 40 percent startup. Forty-five percent of our 

clients are women, 10 percent are veterans, 33 percent are minorities. And yearly, we provide over 1.5 million hours of counseling 

and training to over 500,000 small businesses. 

From 2012 to 2018, SBDCs helped their clients obtain over $30 

billion in capital, increase sales by $40 billion, and create over 

538,000 jobs. 

Our services tend to be a little more in-depth and varied, so what 

I would like to highlight is some of the services, but more particularly, how we focus on them. 

Every SBDC undergoes accreditation, a week-long examination 

with a rigorous self-study, interviews, and written reports. The 

process is based on the NIST/Malcolm Baldridge quality standards. 

A key component is the needs assessment. The SBDC focuses on 

the client’s needs locally and the local economy, ensuring service 

relevance. As a result, SBDCs offer both specialized services and 

general business assistance. 

For veterans, we prioritize assistance. We have specialized programs in states with large veteran populations to assist with pre 

and post deployment needs, and as well, we participate in Boots to 

Business and other transition assistance programs. 

Our outreach to underserved communities is also a significant 

priority. Our members support targeted outreach, covering everything from MB certification to business quarter revitalization. 

And we are mandated to cover entire states, so our initiatives 

reach rural needs as well. Our Texas SBDC hosts an annual rural 

conference, and our Alabama SBDC has a real strong collaboration 

with USDA. 

And we have over 500 certified export assistance counselors 

partnering with the Census Bureau to provide export training, and 

in many states the SBDC is a key component of the state’s export 

program. 

And we are integral in disaster response and often the first on 

the scene to set up business recovery centers with FEMA and SBA. 

In Florida, for example, SBDC is a primary disaster responder for 

the state. 

We also 3 years ago started offering cybersecurity training. Small 

business owners lacked information and skills, so SBDCs developed 

assessment tools, training programs, and enhanced their cyber 

skills and ensured that small contractors are current on Federal 

cybersecurity requirements. 

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And along the lines of procurement, 29 of the 94 PTACs are supported by SBDCs, offering in-depth assistance to small businesses 

navigating Federal procurement. Other SBDCs offer more introductory courses on contracting and help with certifications. 

Recently, we began collecting new SBA metrics. This year will be 

a baseline year, and our hope is that this will be a larger discussion on best ways to help small business. 

America’s SBDCs do not believe in a one size fits all approach. 

Our networks have different resources and needs, and what we 

want to be sure is that the focus is on measures that reflect small 

business success. 

I just want to sum up here and say I talked about all the things 

we do, but the most important thing we do is work with all of our 

colleagues here at the table and the PTACs. We refer clients back 

and forth regularly because none of us can be all things to all small 

businesses. 

And with that in mind, I am just finally going to say we strongly 

support the idea of reauthorizing the Entrepreneurial Development 

Programs. I, in my written testimony, outlined a number of areas 

for consideration and I look forward to your questions on that. I 

think it is time for a full conversation on the services and all of 

our commitments. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Rowe. 

And now, Ms. Hodges, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF CORINNE HODGES 

Ms. HODGES. Chairwoman Vela ́zquez, Ranking Member 

Chabot, and distinguished members of the Committee, good morning, and thank you so much for convening today’s hearing. 

My name is Corinne Hodges, and I serve as the CEO of the Association of Women’s Business Centers. 

Our organization supports the network of WBCs by providing 

programming and advocacy to improve services to women entrepreneurs. I am honored to be here today, and I am joined by our 

board who is behind me. 

The WBC program is a public-private partnership with over 30 

years of success in providing long-term training, counseling, mentoring, and access to capital to women entrepreneurs across the 

country. 

What began as four demonstration sites in 1988 is now a network of 114 centers with more than 150 locations nationwide. In 

no small part, thanks to this Committee for your effort there and 

support. In that time, WBCs have served more than 2 million 

women entrepreneurs leading to the creation and expansion of tens 

of thousands of new businesses and jobs. 

In Fiscal Year 2017, we reached 148,000 entrepreneurs, ranging 

from startups seeking capital to established businesses exploring 

new markets. Each year we help to secure hundreds of millions of 

dollars in financing, assisting in winning government and corporate 

contracts, and support the hiring of thousands of new employees. 

According to the SBA’s 2015 report, the most recently released, 

96 percent of WBC clients reported revenue growth totaling a stagSBR002 with DISTILLER

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gering $658 million. This led to one in 10 businesses hiring at least 

one new employee, creating nearly 25,000 jobs. 

WBCs also play a significant role in fueling the growth of minority-owned businesses. Forty-five percent of clients in 2016 were minorities, which required many centers to adapt. Today, 64 percent 

of WBCs provide programming in two or more languages, and nationally services are provided in more than 35 languages. 

Each WBC is unique, designing program and delivery models 

with their communities in mind. At the Brooklyn Women’s Business Center where fashion and beauty knowledge was in demand, 

counselors created training to meet the needs within that industry. 

They brought in beauty experts, celebrity stylists, and even intellectual property attorneys to help protect their clients’ creations. 

They now plan to purchase sewing machines and offer classes on 

site for those interested in creating fashion prototypes or textile 

manufacturing. 

Our services are distinctly different from other resource partners 

due in large part to the unique challenges facing women business 

owners. Our clients consistently say they come to WBCs not just 

for business education and consulting, but for supportive environment that helps build self-efficacy through addressing four critical 

issues—competence, confidence, capital, and connection. The result 

is real economic impact felt by the client and their community. 

Janay Brower, a WBC client in Michigan, owns an upcycling 

manufacturing company called Public Thread. It was with the support of other business women that she moved this business out of 

her kitchen and into a commercial manufacturing space. As she 

puts it, women are uniquely positioned to see the long-term benefits to communities rather than just the short-term financial goals. 

Evaluation data from WBC programs indicate that women like 

Janay who receive business assistance from their programs build 

larger businesses, create more jobs, and have significantly higher 

survivor rates than the national average. 

Women’s Economic Ventures in California boasts an 80 percent 

survival rate after 5 years for its clients, far above the national average of 50 percent. Moreover, more than 40 percent of their clients 

have employees compared to the national average of only 12 percent of all woman-owned firms. 

In Chicago, the Women’s Business Development Center created 

the Developing Your Childcare business course, professionalizing 

dozens of home-based businesses in low-income communities. 

Finally, and perhaps most critically, the WBC program has proven to be a good investment of taxpayer dollars. Private sector fundraising enhanced by the visibility of the SBA partnership helps to 

match Federal dollars more than three to one. For every one Federal dollar invested in the program, the WBC program returns $46 

to the economy. 

And yet, we are not realizing our full potential. We need policymakers to strengthen and modernize the WBC program, expanding 

our proven impact to communities across the country. We urge 

Congress to raise a 30-year-old arbitrary cap that prevents our best 

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efficiency that comes to mind actually provides a disincentive for 

centers to raise additional nonfederal funds. 

The upward trajectory of the program is also deserving of more 

Federal funding. Ensuring adequate resources is a key component 

to continuing the growth of the WBC program and women’s entrepreneurship more broadly. 

Unfortunately, resources for the program have not grown in parallel to the more than 50 percent increase in centers over the last 

15 years, so we urge congressional action to improve data collection 

in order to quantify just how much growth is happening. 

The challenges facing women entrepreneurs persist as must the 

commitment of Congress to advancing these priorities. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I am open to your 

questions. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Ms. Hodges. 

And now, Mr. Yancey, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF KEN YANCEY 

Mr. YANCEY. Chairman Vela ́zquez, Ranking Member Chabot, 

members of the Committee, my name is Ken Yancey, and I am the 

CEO at SCORE. Thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony 

to the Committee regarding SCORE’s programs, services, and plans 

for the future. We appreciate being on the witness panel with our 

friends and partners from the SBDC, Women’s Business Centers, 

and the VBOCs, and we also want to thank our founding partner, 

who 55 years ago established our organization and continues to be 

that primary partner, the SBA. 

Fiscal Year 2018 was another effective year for SCORE as measured by client volume, impact, and client engagement. In Fiscal 

Year 2018, SCORE helped clients to create more than 32,000 new 

small businesses, and 136,000 total jobs. Our cost to create a job 

is $81. The cost to create a business is $340. 

This efficiency in creating jobs and businesses provides a tremendous return on all Federal dollars invested in SCORE. In Fiscal 

Year 2018 alone, SCORE clients returned an estimated $47 in new 

tax revenue to the Federal treasury for every dollar appropriated 

to SCORE. 

Through an annual survey completed by 

PricewaterhouseCoopers, SCORE has measured client engagement 

for nearly a decade. In Fiscal Year 2018, SCORE client engagement, a measure similar to client satisfaction, was 4.29 on a 5- 

point scale, a significant increase from the previous year. 

We are proud of the work our volunteers do with clients, and this 

improvement continues to show that our volunteer onboarding, certification, and training do work. 

Last year, we began the implementation of SCORE’s Vision 2025, 

a futures initiative intended to ensure our relevancy for the next 

50 years. Vision 2025 guides decision and organizational development within SCORE. 

As an organization, we must continue our ongoing cultural transformation by operating with a one SCORE mindset in which headquarters, chapters, volunteers, and the SCORE foundation work together to achieve the goals of increased focus on clients, quality, accountability, and growth. 

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Examples of our one SCORE approach include the standardization of all chapter websites resulting in greater web traffic, consistent messaging and branding, and increased client services. 

SCORE is developing a new salesforce-based CRM system that 

will be deployed in Fiscal Year 2020. The system will make it easier for both volunteers and clients to do business with SCORE, and 

it is mobile friendly, allowing both to engage with SCORE via their 

handheld device. 

SCORE has centralized social media in 270 chapters. Participating chapters saw an 8.9 percent increase in services, triple that 

of nonpilot chapters. 

SCORE is centralizing all accounting and finance systems nationwide. Centralizing accounting functions will reduce the administrative burden at the chapter level, allowing our leaders to focus 

more on client needs. It also allows chapters to continue to have 

control over their funds, and importantly, reduces risk at the organizational level. 

SCORE standardized volunteer onboarding and volunteer training, resulting in greater consistency of services, improved quality, 

and greater client impact. 

One of SCORE’s most important initiatives is diversity and inclusion. SCORE is committed to improving the diversity of both clients and volunteers and ensuring that SCORE is intentionally inclusive at every level of the organization. In 2017, a National Inclusion Task Force was formed to drive strategic cultural change 

throughout SCORE. By year’s end, all volunteer leaders have been 

trained in sessions across the country and online inclusivity training is now mandatory annually for all of our volunteers. 

We have improved from 22 percent women and minority volunteers in 2012 to 31 percent in 2018. Client diversity has improved 

as well. This, however, is not good enough. We continue to aggressively address these challenges. Our goal is to effectively serve all 

people with respect, dignity, and professionalism regardless of their 

adjective. 

To help SCORE achieve its goal to better serve its goals our clients and achieve all that our volunteers are capable of, we respectfully request an authorization and appropriation of $13.5 million in 

Fiscal Year 2020. We also request a 3-year authorization of $13.5 

million in 2020, $13.5 million in 2021, and $15.5 million in 2022. 

I would also encourage the Committee to support and invest in the 

other resource partners who are here who are part of the entrepreneurial fabric of all communities where we serve and outstanding 

partners in those communities as well. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today, and 

I look forward to any questions. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

Ms. Sagester, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF CHERYLYNN SAGESTER 

Ms. SAGESTER. Good morning. And I want to thank Chairwoman Vela ́zquez, and Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot, for this opportunity to speak before you this morning, as well as I am honored to join our other major resource partners that serve small 

businesses in our country. 

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There is no better time to be a startup entrepreneur in the U.S. 

than at this moment. The financial conditions are certainly favorable, as well as the economic outlook for the future; not to mention 

the traditional negative and/or skeptical mindset regarding entrepreneurship is a thing of the past. Entrepreneurship is currently 

thought of not only in a positive light, but is considered the ‘‘ thing 

to do,’’ especially if you are a millennial or a veteran. And if that 

is the case, it is thought of as the way to achieve autonomy, success, and independent wealth. 

Furthermore, research conducted after each major war since 

post-WWII tells us veteran entrepreneurship significantly increases 

after each major war, and the Iraq and Afghanistan war is no different. Research has also shown veterans make the best entrepreneurs, as they acquire skills and character that are conducive 

to what is required for entrepreneurial success. An example of 

those character traits are as follows: we have an excellent work 

ethic, we have a sound understanding of the need for a plan and 

the necessity to follow the plan, veterans are risk-adverse, and failure is not an option, among other traits. In addition, these new veterans are the most educated and technologically advanced service 

members than any before them. When considering this, combined 

with the previously mentioned character traits gained by military 

service, you have a sector of the population that is prime for taking 

on entrepreneurship and thereby, control over their future. 

On the other hand, startups have many challenges, as any form 

of entrepreneurship does. In particular, a startup is immediately 

challenged when it comes to startup capital. A startup is like any 

small business. Funding is the biggest obstacle to confront, along 

with lack of experience or knowledge as an entrepreneur. With that 

said, the following statistics provide validity to what is observed in 

the startup and entrepreneurial community. Approximately 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first 4 years, with the leading 

cause being incompetence and lack of managerial experience at 30 

percent, and 82 percent of the businesses fail due to cash flow deficiency. 

As the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Veterans 

Business Development, we are a premier entrepreneurial development program. As the Veteran Business Outreach Centers located 

across the U.S., and there are 22 of us, with each center responsible for a geographic region that covers multiple states. For example, the center that I oversee as the director of Region III includes 

the states of Virginia and West Virginia. We are located at Old Dominion University Veterans Business Outreach Center, as part of 

the university’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

This center is located approximately 5.2 miles from the Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world, who transitions 

out over 10,000 sailors each year, and for the last 6 years it has 

done this and continues to do so as our estimates show. 

With the last few minutes of my time I would like to focus on 

the three requirements that we have as VBOCs. Number one is 

military transition. And that includes military spouses as well. And 

a part of that military transition program is one of the best known 

entrepreneurial programs I have ever seen in my career, and that 

is a program called Boots to Business. Boots to Business is a 2-day 

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intense introduction to entrepreneurship that our transitioning 

service members go through. It is delivered on an installation of 

which they are transitioning out, and it is one of three tracks that 

they are given. 

I look forward to the opportunity to speak more about Boots to 

Business. I look forward to the opportunity to talk about military 

spouses, as well as economic disadvantaged areas of the states that 

we cover and how it is that we are able to achieve our requirements. Military transition outreach and other trainings, as well as 

business counseling, which is the magic. That is where the magic 

happens. 

And I thank this Committee and all guests for this opportunity. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Ms. Sagester. 

And now I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

One of my top priorities for this Congress is to, of course, review 

and update and modernize the entrepreneurial development programs. So I am giving you this opportunity, each one of you, to tell 

me in your view what is working, what is working well, and what 

needs to be improved. 

Mr. Rowe? 

Mr. ROWE. I think the programs here at the table are working 

quite well. We try very hard to work together. We are all limited 

by resources, I think, at a certain level. Sometimes the biggest 

problem we face is kind of a lack of clear guidance. It is sort of like 

we are all on a team together. We have got goals set for ourselves 

but nobody has told us what the big goal is at the end. It is sort 

of like we are all there playing football but nobody is talking about 

the Super Bowl. And to me that is what are we trying to get to, 

all of us and the SBA, an endgame for small business in this country? And there is just not a clear vision. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

Ms. Hodges? 

Ms. HODGES. I would agree with Mr. Rowe. I speak for the 

WBC program and it does work well. Indeed, we surpass or exceed 

the targets that SBA sets for us so we see the program as very successful. 

What is not working for us is just the outdated statute that you 

mentioned. Reauthorization for us means, hopefully, increased appropriations that specifically would lift the cap per center, which 

is a 30-year-old cap, and also allow additional funding for us to 

have more centers. Also, we would entertain the idea and support 

the idea of accreditation that would most likely be modeled after 

the SBDCS. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Yancey? 

Mr. YANCEY. I know that the SBA is working hard at all levels 

on additional transparency. It is good to know as Tee said who is 

doing what and what the end goal is. I also know that the SBA is 

working to update and upgrade their technological systems. That 

would be valuable and useful for us. We do our own measurement 

as you heard. It is important to us. It provides far more information than just impact. We use it to manage, and we would not want 

to at any point lose that opportunity to do that on our own. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

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Ms. Sagester? 

Ms. SAGESTER. I can say I absolutely agree with Tee. All of us 

resource partners, we appreciate the value that we all bring to the 

small business owner and the entrepreneur and collaborate quite 

often. As a matter of fact, in our suite we have a VBOC, we have 

a Women’s Business Center, and we have a PTAC, Procurement 

Technical Assistance Center, which we are constantly collaborating. So I think that is going really well. 

I think we, personally, our center has experienced great success 

with also our SBA district office in Richmond for Virginia and work 

extremely well with the two district offices in the state of West Virginia. And not to mention, our headquarters here in D.C. with the 

OVBD is very supportive. 

Where I would like to see some action, that would be very similar 

as well to my colleagues, and that is the appropriations. We are 

covering multi states that require extensive travel and expenses. 

And what keeps me awake at night, is serving those that are not 

in my immediate area. And so with additional appropriations and 

consideration for the mission that we have, that is where I think 

we could have a greater impact. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

As you know, the SBA now is moving towards outcome-based 

measures, like unique clients served and new business starts from 

the output-based data. So do you believe these goals better measure the quality of services that you provide? 

Tee? 

Mr. ROWE. They can, but I think there are problems with all of 

them. If you look at new business starts, unless that is a longitudinal view, you know, more than a 1 year snapshot, you do not 

know whether you have created a good business or a business that 

is going to fail in 6 months. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. So is SBA working with you in establishing these goals? What type of input, feedback are you providing, all of you? 

Mr. ROWE. Well, we have had a few meetings with SBA. I would 

like to establish this as an ongoing collaborative effort to negotiate 

what our goals are nationally and individually amongst the networks because they are all changing. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Okay. So I am sorry but I would like 

to hear from the other centers’ programs. 

Ms. Hodges, what is your take on this new development? 

Ms. HODGES. Sure. It is still very new, this move toward capturing the unique clients versus total clients served. That is a more 

fair number. It is a better number. Where we lack is in some of 

the access to the data collected. We are working on that, and SBA 

is committed to that as well and we are glad for that. We encourage all of the partners at the table, SBA, and Congress, to continue 

to prioritize this fact, this matter. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Mr. Yancey? 

Mr. YANCEY. The information that we have been asked to collect is information we had previously collected. I am not sure that 

in a vacuum it tells the best story. We like to ask a question at 

SCORE, did SCORE help you? Seventy-seven percent of the clients 

say we did. You might not have started a business. We might have 

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helped you understand you were not quite ready and what was 

next, so there are metrics in value beyond just the creation of a job 

and the creation of a business. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Okay. Ms. Sagester? 

Ms. SAGESTER. One of the difficult metrics to acquire is how 

many businesses are successful and how long have they been in 

business. It is very difficult to get these clients to report to us. We 

have tried surveys, phone calls, letters, everything. Once they get 

off the ground and they are growing and running, they say they are 

too busy to get back to us. That is a metric that we need to figure 

out, how can we better measure the successes? 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. My time has expired and 

now I yield to the Ranking Member for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

And the first question will be to all the panelists. I will start 

with you, Tee. 

In the current economic environment, unemployment being so 

low, a lot of small businesses, and I hear this back in my district 

all the time when I tour various small businesses there, they are 

struggling to find qualified people. In what way does your particular program assist small businesses who are facing the problem 

that they just cannot find good people? And a lot of times I hear, 

well, they need to show up for work consistently and pass a drug 

test and those kind of things. And unfortunately, there are a lot of 

folks that that is not the case with. 

So Mr. Rowe? 

Mr. ROWE. Well, what most SBDCs work on is assisting the clients with managing a new workforce. But what we hear constantly 

from them is that there is a lack of workforce development with the 

exception in some of the skilled union trades. And really what they 

need is help developing apprenticeship programs that can help the 

vast majority of small businesses and service industries, et cetera, 

to build a workforce. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Thank you. 

Ms. Hodges? 

Ms. HODGES. Workforce development, obviously, is a critical 

need in the country nationwide. For any business who is suffering 

from the ability to attract and recruit the qualified and talented 

workforce that they need, they would benefit from the long-term 

training opportunities that we provide in our centers. It is really 

I think something unique in our program, the ability for us to build 

that relationship and provide the long-term training because these 

solutions are not easy and they are not quick. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

Mr. Yancey? 

Mr. YANCEY. Similar to our colleagues, we would bring in volunteers with HR experience, particularly in recruiting. Help clients 

to package their opportunity differently and maybe better than 

competing organizations. Talk about training that could occur for 

a new employee. Opportunities that could occur and help them 

compete better and be more prepared in a really difficult environment where there is truly a war for talent right now. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

Ms. Sagester? 

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Ms. SAGESTER. In our area we have the VEC, the Veteran Employment Center, and we are the veteran partner for them. And so 

many times what happens is veterans, of course, also make great 

employees. They show up for work. They have a good work ethic. 

So we are working with the VEC and we are providing training on 

site. We have a new center there in Norfolk and we are providing 

employment training right on site. I think what we are looking at, 

too, across the country is we need to better train folks for the jobs 

that are available now, especially in the trades because we do not 

want to lose those. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Rowe, let me go to you again. Your testimony noted that 

SBDCs are often located at colleges and universities. Other than 

being located there, in other ways, what ways does the host institution and the SBDC work together other than being at the same 

place? 

Mr. ROWE. We actually have a lot of resources from the business 

schools where we use the student body, the professors, to bring new 

management concepts out to our small business owners. Also, there 

is a huge science and technical component where we work with 

SBIR applicants regularly to help make sure that there is a broad 

array of small businesses accessing those R&D dollars. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Hodges, in your testimony you highlighted the importance of 

Women’s Business Centers serving economically disadvantaged and 

underserved populations. How do your centers specifically target 

that demographic? 

Ms. HODGES. I will not say that this is how we target the demographic, but they are best served by providing not only the counseling, the competence factor and confidence, but access to capital 

is so critical. In fact, I think our program represents the majority 

of the microenterprise lenders in the room. And this access to capital is just not available to a lot of these entrepreneurs in any other 

way. If it were not for these microenterprise lenders which comprise 40 percent of our centers, quite honestly, these entrepreneurs 

would not have access to it at all. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. I am almost at an end, so rather than ask 

a question I will just tell you, Mr. Yancey, I have had an opportunity to speak at various gatherings of SCORE and meet with 

them on occasion, and I now you all do a tremendous amount of 

good for a whole lot of folks so I will just leave it there. Thank you. 

And I bet you agree with that. 

Mr. YANCEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Very good. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. 

And now I recognize the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on 

Rural Development, Agriculture Trade, and Entrepreneurship from 

Iowa, Ms. Finkenauer for 5 minutes. 

Ms. FINKENAUER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I really appreciate you all being here today. You all do incredible 

work and I am very grateful for your service and everything that 

you do. 

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So I have to tell you, so I am from Iowa, one. It is about a fourth 

of the state of Iowa. So we have got kind of three bigger cities and 

then the rest is pretty rural with some smaller towns. And despite 

the weather lately, my favorite thing, obviously, a part of this job 

is getting to go back and have my work periods and getting to meet 

with folks all over the district. And this last work period, so last 

week, I had a great opportunity to go visit University of Northern 

Iowa, and their business community service program, and also a 

small business in one of our smaller towns, Maquoketa, called Precision Metal Works. And at the university it was great to get to 

visit them. I have done it multiple times, but again, this was one 

of the first times really focusing on their business center. And they 

are doing a great job. I mean, they are housing the Small Business 

Development Center along with other programs all under one roof 

where you are helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, even helping governments with marketing, new business incubation, and 

even help with regulatory compliance. 

And then Precision Metal Works, it is a great business model. 

They have been in Maquoketa since the 1980s, and on top of their 

regular business, which is helping with commercial washers, they 

also work a lot with some of our other folks in the state and across 

the country who come in and say I have a great idea for this. Can 

you manufacture it for me? And see what we do here. And I have 

been hearing great stories from what they have been able to do, 

but unfortunately, even though we see this in my district and it is 

happening, I mean, the data according to the Office of Advocacy is 

just showing that, you know, rural self-employment since 1988 to 

2016 has fallen like 20 percent. And then on top of it we are also 

lacking more youth entrepreneurs as well. 

So this really is to Mr. Rowe and anybody else who wants to 

jump in on it. I am very curious of all your takes on it. But what 

are some of the bigger challenges that rural entrepreneurs are facing? And then what are some of the efforts that you are taking to 

ensure that rural small businesses are receiving the technical assistance they require to build a robust, sustainable business? And 

is marketing a part of that suite? Because that was one of the 

things that really stuck out to me with talking to Precision Metal 

Works with some of the folks they are working with. They have got 

great products they are developing, yet the next step, that marketing part, you know, they have fallen behind on. And so, and it 

helps them if that small business they are helping does well. So I 

am trying to figure out what more can we be doing? And are we 

missing anything? 

Mr. ROWE. Well, one of the bigger problems we see and we face 

with our clients in rural areas is simply a lack of broadband and 

a lack of internet access that really helps them. You cannot reach 

the world now the way you used to. You have got to be internet 

savvy, but you have also got to be able to get serious broadband 

access. 

Now, SBDCs are located at colleges and universities, but they 

tend to be just like isolated islands of broadband. And building that 

infrastructure is a huge issue. And I know that my folks have 

talked to you about this. I have talked with Mr. Kelly about it. 

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That is probably a key focus for us, how can we get more 

broadband to our clients to get their products to the world? 

Ms. FINKENAUER. Thank you. 

Ms. Hodges? 

Ms. HODGES. Thank you. 

It is an ongoing challenge, but I think we can also, in addition 

to the comments Mr. Rowe made, we can be innovative. And some 

of our centers have done just that. For example, in Oklahoma, one 

of our centers bought buses outfitted with entrepreneurial labs and 

drove to the clients across the state. And in Nebraska, we actually 

do not have a brick and mortar center location; rather, those resources are used to deploy the counselors and the resources all 

across the state. So again, going to the rural areas to serve. And 

then sounding like a broken record, more resources, you know, appropriate would also help support that greater infrastructure needed. 

Ms. FINKENAUER. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. Yancey? 

Mr. YANCEY. I do not have a lot to add. I think the broadband 

issue is a real challenge. Our desire is to serve communities using 

web-based technologies that allow us to do that, and where 

broadband is not available, our ability to serve without bricks and 

mortar is very, very limited. We do circuit rides, not exactly like 

buses and things, but we do try and get out. But the broadband 

piece is important. And it is very expensive to do that, so the funding available for that purpose would be helpful as well. 

Ms. FINKENAUER. Thank you. 

And Ms. Sagester, I am sorry. I know my time has expired, but 

thank you so much for being here, all of you. And Madam Chair, 

I yield back. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back. 

And now we recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Balderson, 

Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Innovation and Workforce Development for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you 

also to the Committee. 

My dear colleague, Mr. Chabot, kind of jumped on my question 

for you, Mr. Rowe, but it was quite a coincidence this morning. I 

have gotten pretty savvy here on my phone. I even highlighted it. 

But I am reading the newspaper at 6:30 this morning, the Plymouth Dispatch, which is my district big newspaper, and it was a 

study that has been done, and this organization does it every year 

annually for small businesses. And 56.9 percent of the companies 

identified finding qualified workers as their biggest issue and their 

biggest challenge to doing business and finding those qualified 

workers. This has been the top issue for them the last 5 years during this survey. So I thought that was pretty interesting this morning for me to come across that at 6:30, 6:35, and to see this. 

So my question, Mr. Rowe is, you know, as the Ranking Member 

on the Subcommittee for Innovation and Workforce Development, 

this is something I am very passionate about. Are there any ideas 

out there that the SBDCs and the 17:32:09xxx program, that they 

can give us suggestions with or any conclusion on that of what support we can do? 

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Mr. ROWE. Well, I have actually been privileged to be tasked to 

work with a working group at the Department of Labor on what 

they call industry recognized apprenticeship programs. And essentially what we are trying to do is find a way to formalize the apprenticeship programs in a variety of industries outside of the 

skilled trades, the registered apprenticeship programs that you find 

at DOL and expand the ability to get workforce. And I think I see 

my role on that as, yes, we have so many clients out there who 

could use this. What we need to do is develop those accredited programs to train these folks. 

Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you. 

Ms. Sagester, I apologize. My question to you would be my office 

met yesterday with a group from the American Legion and had, 

you know, some of the issues that they were discussing was problems that many veterans have lack of access to skilled training programs that would help them transition into the workforce. 

My question is, is there anything out there more that we could 

do to help address this problem? You do not have to go through a 

whole list of things. 

Ms. SAGESTER. As I had been mentioning with regard to veteran employment, we are partnering as well with, like I said, the 

Virginia Employment Commission. And there are many veterans 

who have trades to be a good small business owner. So what we 

are seeing a lot of and we are promoting is helping them find employment so that they can support themselves and their families 

and then help and assist them on the side to start preparing themselves for small business ownership. And we have got several that 

are in that program right now. And therefore, it helps solve some 

of the labor problem’s and the veterans’ issues, as well as their future. But as far as our center also goes, we do a lot of in-house 

training. A lot on business itself. You know, life skills. They have 

a hard time converting their military vita into a resume. It is very 

difficult for them and they do not even see the similarities. So we 

are providing support with that as well. 

Mr. BALDERSON. Okay. I do want to add, and I would love to 

work with your organization on something like this, but in the 

state of Ohio, in the state legislature where I serve, we get a bill 

for veterans for CDL license. A veteran coming back in and having 

done that job in the military service and having that ability to do 

that and taking away a lot of the, I guess I will use the word ‘‘ red 

tape’’ or bureaucracy to get that license back again, and that has 

been a big tap that has been filled. I should not say ‘‘ big’’ but it 

has been filled a little bit. And that is something I would like to 

see us do at the Federal level. 

Ms. SAGESTER. We had a similar program such as that at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach. And it works extremely well. We have the same similar program with regard to 

military firefighters and security officers. So it is a great transition. 

Mr. BALDERSON. I look forward to working with you. 

And Madam Chair, I yield back the remaining time. 

Ms. SAGESTER. I would welcome the opportunity, sir. 

Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. 

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And now the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Golden, Chairman of 

the Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOLDEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. Sagester, I think I will kind of go where it sounded like you 

might have been talking a little bit about something that is top of 

mind for you, which is how do you reach out to those people that 

are far away from your center. And just to give you a sense of why 

I share that concern with you, Virginia has an awful lot of veterans, which is a great thing. And Maine does not have as many, 

but when we look at the per capita statistics it is about one in 10. 

And that is even stronger out in rural Maine, in the district that 

I represent, a much higher per capita percentage. Yet, our closest 

center, similar to yours, is in Rhode Island, three states away. So 

I think we agree that more centers would be better if there were 

enough funding for that. 

But what is the appropriate ratio in your opinion around the 

country? 

Ms. SAGESTER. With regard to? 

Mr. GOLDEN. Number of centers? 

Ms. SAGESTER. Number of centers. 

Mr. GOLDEN. To region or—— 

Ms. SAGESTER. Well, we have 22 centers as I was saying. And 

a great deal of where those 22 centers are located depends on what 

organizations apply and respond to the proposal to have a center. 

That is where a great of it really is if they do not—if the SBA does 

not receive any proposals from a certain area, then that area kind 

of misses out. So it is something that you could encourage in your 

area, is for organizations to apply when the opportunity is there on 

grants.gov. 

But I would like to just say real quickly, with regard to the economic disadvantaged rural areas that we have, that is what keeps 

me awake at night. I want to make sure that all the constituents 

that we are responsible for have access to our resources if at all 

possible. So we have now been able for the last year—it took me 

4 years to be able to get there—but we now offer all of our 

trainings are webinars. And we promote that. But the challenge we 

are having is getting the word out to those rural areas that this 

resource is available. That is one of the areas that we really, I 

think need to focus on is how can we better market all of our resources and all of our partners. So I am personally going to West 

Virginia next month, and I will be there for a week doing just that. 

And I am also traveling to some of our disadvantaged areas here 

in Virginia, such as Wise County. And we are working with the 

American Legion out there to do some outreach. That is very, very, 

very important because we cannot help them if they do not know 

we are here and have the information to dial in for those webinars 

and go to the website and listen to podcasts or so on and so forth. 

Mr. GOLDEN. Thank you very much for that. 

That brings me to another point which coming off district week 

traveling all over a very large rural area I have talked to no shortage of small business owners in the last week and in the past couple of months. And look, we often ask, you know, are you aware 

of these programs, each of the ones that you all run, and about 

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SBA in particular. And often, it is not the first thing that small 

business owners are thinking about in rural Maine. So I have got 

to put a plug in there to this Committee, let us pick up the marketing and make sure that it is out there. Obviously, Maine’s region should be looking to put in an application for a center in 

Maine. Rhode Island is like a life’s time away from rural Maine. 

So that is just not good enough. 

And when it comes to this issue of reaching out on the internet, 

I mean, broadband sounds great. What we often hear people in 

Maine saying is we will just take faster internet because it is practically dial up in many regions. 

If I could, Mr. Rowe, just a question for you. Sitting in a community recent, this issue of workforce cane up. And there were many 

different industries sitting around the table, a lot of small business. 

And while they did not have necessarily all the same types of work 

requirements, there were some shared factors in terms of the needs 

that are lacking in the community and our workforce. And so we 

had about 20 different business owners sitting, as well as Chamber 

of Commerce and municipal leaders trying to get at this issue of 

how do we establish some kind of training program to get workers 

in here. What would be the proper way for them to interface with 

someone like SBDC? Can they come to you as a group? Can the 

whole community come to you and work with you? 

Mr. ROWE. Sure. 

Mr. GOLDEN. Okay. 

Mr. ROWE. Absolutely, sir. 

Mr. GOLDEN. Very good. So they do not have to pick one business to lead? 

Mr. ROWE. No. 

Mr. GOLDEN. They could actually reach out to you as an entire 

municipality? 

Mr. ROWE. No. Mark Delisle at USM is our state director and 

I am sure he would be happy to hear from them. 

Mr. GOLDEN. Thank you. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. 

And now we recognize Mr. Joyce from Pennsylvania, Ranking 

Member of the Subcommittee on Rural Development, Agriculture, 

Entrepreneurship, and Trade for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOYCE. Thank you. And thank you for being here today because what you bring to us is so important. 

Mr. Rowe, you talked about the lack of internet capabilities. I am 

from South Central Pennsylvania, from Gettysburg out to where 

Flight 93 went down. Even as we travel we lose our navigation systems. We know that broadband is very limited in these areas. I 

think that each one of you would be able to more effectively do your 

jobs with a better broadband system, particularly when facing 

rural areas. I think we recognize that as a Committee. I think that 

we are all aware that there could be improvements made in that. 

I am going to turn this question around because I think each one 

of you bring a different skillset to the table. And you do have the 

abilities to communicate with each other. 

Mr. Rowe, your group is incredible. They bring so much to my 

district. So when you are setting up a program, how do you interface with the other people at the table? How do you let people 

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know that WBC, which is so important on so many different levels, 

might bring a different flavor if we will use that term, a different 

angle to the entire equation? How do you all as a group communicate with each other? How do you present to the different communities that you address? Because you have different skillsets. 

You have different tools in your tool belts. We are impressed by 

that. How do you get that out to the people? 

Mr. ROWE. Well, I wish I could say there was some, you know, 

uniform book that we have on this. We have got 63 networks and 

I cannot remember how many chapters that Ken has. It is really 

a very individualized thing. It is the investment that our folks 

make to know about the SCORE chapter in their area or the Women’s Business Center or the VBOC, which hopefully is not three 

states away. And be able to recognize our own faults. And that is 

the big thing. When we do our self-assessments and our needs assessments, it is very clear we can only cover so many things. So 

we need to lean on each other, and it may be the SBDC in Phoenix 

sending someone to a SCORE counselor in Las Vegas, Nevada, because they know that there is an expert there. But it has been a 

very organic sort of communication system for all of us. 

Mr. JOYCE. Do we need more than that? Do each one of your 

websites need to access each other so that someone, if they are not 

seeing the information that is best provided to their specific problems, that they can go back to WBC or they can go back to SCORE. 

Is that something that is worth considering? 

Mr. ROWE. Yeah, I think it would be fabulous if within our networks we could essentially search and say, okay, we need someone 

who is an expert on X. 

Mr. JOYCE. Military issues. And this is how you click on this tab 

and get to this point. That is my question for you. 

Ms. Sagester, do you think that that would work as well from 

your side? 

Ms. SAGESTER. I think it is excellent. What we are in the process of doing is adding our resource partners, their links from our 

website directly to theirs so that when clients or prospective clients 

go to our website they can also under resources just click SCORE 

and go straight to either the national but right now local SCORE 

chapters. But again, you know, we wished, just so the Committee 

knows, that we want a VBOC in every state. That should be our 

goal, absolutely, because as Tee was saying, we hope that the 

VBOC is not three states away. Okay? But we, also at our center, 

one of the other ways that we reach out and use our resource partners and collaborate, is through bringing them in as subject matter 

expert’s (SMEs) on our trainings. SCORE is vital. SBDCs are vital. 

Women’s Business Centers. They come in as a subject matter expert and they will teach a module or whatever, and then they have 

full access to that audience as well. And so then the clients start 

to see us not as individual silos but they have an entire team that 

is on their side. 

Mr. JOYCE. And that entire team has to be commended. Thank 

you for being here today. I defer my time back. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

And now I recognize Ms. Houlahan from Pennsylvania for 5 minutes. 

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Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you 

to the Committee for coming. 

I am a woman. I am a veteran. I am an entrepreneur. And so 

I sort of fit into all of your buckets, and I really appreciate everything that you have done. I also really appreciated Mr. Yancey’s 

testimony that talked a little bit about implementation of CRMs 

and ERPs. And you guys have hall been talking about data and the 

importance of measuring and metrics. 

My question is sort of turning the business back onto the business of your businesses. I appreciate that each of you are asking 

for different resources to be allocated to one another, but my question is has there been any form of collaboration—this gets to the 

person’s question before me—on use of systems to make sure that 

when you implement something like Salesforce that you maybe 

have a different instance across every one of your organizations 

and that you are kind of using best practices and the ways that you 

have learned to measure your successes amongst each other. And 

I think that there may be an enormous amount of overlap on each 

of your CRMs that you could maybe benefit from if that was something that you could fold into. So that is one of my questions. 

Mr. YANCEY. We have at SCORE collaborated with SBA and 

over the years in meetings with other resource partners to talk 

about what was appropriate to measure and how to measure it. We 

never really talked about systems that would talk to one another. 

When we do transmit data we are working on it being a very simple process. All of the resource partners would have access through 

our website to volunteers, to counselors, skills, whatever it happens 

to be. In terms of the CRM, that has been private only because 

there is data and other things. We would be happy to share what 

we have done, how we have done it, the architecture behind it, 

what we used for our initial business requirements analysis, et 

cetera. We will share that with the world. 

Ms. HOULAHAN. I just think there would be so much synergy 

and so much opportunity to save money—— 

Mr. YANCEY. There very well may be. 

Ms. HOULAHAN.—between the four organizations. 

Mr. YANCEY. Very well may be. 

Ms. HOULAHAN. And that is sort of my first question. 

The other question is you touched a little bit on diversity and inclusion initiatives and I understand that that is really important. 

But are you guys as entrepreneurial kind of igniters also talking 

about corporate social responsibility initiatives at all? Has that become a thing that you also are talking to your entrepreneurs 

about? 

Ms. SAGESTER. With regard to that I would say the answer is 

yes, but I would like to just back up a second on the previous. 

Ms. HOULAHAN. Of course. 

Ms. SAGESTER. The Women’s Business Center uses a different 

database than we do. We use Neossera. And it just so happens that 

the PTAC also uses Neossera. However, we are all individual as 

Mr. Yancey was saying. We are not able to share based on client 

privilege—— 

Ms. HOULAHAN. It is more on architecture that I am asking 

about. It is kind of more on sort of best practices and metrics and 

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measures that it just seems like there has got to be a whole lot 

going on there where we could save resources and you guys could 

be collaborating on that. And maybe there is some sort of an additional initiative that might be necessary to do that. 

Ms. SAGESTER. And there may be some sort of initiative that 

the Committee could bring to light with regard to the SBA. And 

maybe that is a conversation that needs to be had and there could 

be a way to find that out. 

With regard to corporate responsibility, are you referring to, 

ma’am, such as social entrepreneurship? 

Ms. HOULAHAN. Exactly. Exactly. 

Ms. SAGESTER. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were on 

the same page. 

Ms. HOULAHAN. Absolutely. There is not a business that we 

start that we do not talk about social entrepreneurship and how 

important it is to the business that the business owner and the 

business shows that they are committed to the community at large. 

And we have had great success. You know, at first the entrepreneur is usually kind of like what are you really talking about? 

So we had that conversation. And it is also about making meaning. 

Guy Kawasaki said if you start a business to make money and you 

do not make meaning, not only will you not make meaning, you 

will not make money. But if you make meaning, you will make 

meaning and you will make money. So it has got to not always be 

about you. It has got to be about that community oneness. 

Is there any obligation on the part of folks who access your resources that they consider that? You know, that they at least have 

gone through the training of it in terms of the resources that they 

are accessing so that they have the conversation? We are at least 

obliging them to sit and listen to the importance of meaning and 

money? 

Ms. SAGESTER. Well, at this point it is left up to the individual 

business advisor, but my team knows that we are a center that is 

going to promote social entrepreneurship. And we only have two. 

I had a third advisor just join us on a part-time basis, but that is 

a very important piece of what we bring to the table. Has there 

been any official across the board with all the VBOCs? There has 

not been but you gave me a great idea so that when we have our 

conference this year I am happy to lead the charge and offering a 

training within that area. 

Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you. And I know I am out of time and 

I yield back to the Chairwoman. Thank you so much for your testimony. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

And now we recognize Mr. Antonio Delgado from New York for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. DELGADO. Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank each and every 

one of you for coming. And I am sorry if my question has already 

been asked. 

Last week for me was my first in-district work week. I spent a 

lot of time in my district, which is Update New York, Hudson Valley, Catskills area, actually one of the more rural districts in the 

country. And the district, at the town halls I came across a lot of 

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tions about economic growth and economic opportunity. I think we 

have about 24,000 self-employed individuals in New York 19. And 

so my question is, what can we do to help these self-employed business owners access the capital they need to expand and grow their 

businesses? So can you talk about any work that each of you do 

with community financial development institutions and small business investment companies that specifically help rural folks who 

are self-employed? 

Ms. SAGESTER. I would like to address that by saying that education and training is one of the best areas to help them to understand their small business accounting because most of them have 

never had even a small business accounting class. They would not 

know a balance sheet from a scorecard. So, it is the education and 

training and the managerial training and experience that we bring 

to the table that helps them to see where they are and where they 

need to go to be able to be ready not only to launch their business, 

but it could be to grow. So they do not know what the five Cs are. 

They do not know what a bail team is. The training is really crucial. It is key, and we are constantly doing that with a program we 

call Business Plan Boot Camp when we help them with their market analysis and get started and prepare their plan. We also do 

twice a year a small business finance course, and that to me is the 

most vital piece, is educating these want-to-be startups as well as 

the entrepreneur and the small business owner that is growing. 

Mr. DELGADO. Can I just ask a follow up to that? When you 

say that there is a lack of education or training, is this something 

that has been consistent through your time in this space or have 

you seen a drop in the level of information or one’s own ability to 

have the knowledge base to do what you are speaking of? 

Ms. SAGESTER. I would say it has been consistent. 

Mr. DELGADO. Any reason why that would be the case? 

Ms. SAGESTER. Well, most people do not take accounting when 

they are in high school or college unless they are going to be a CPA 

or it is required or mandatory for their program. And some people 

do not even know how to balance a checkbook because hardly anyone writes checks anymore. So sometimes things are just the way 

they are. And so we try to help them to understand basic small 

business accounting before they can go on and really grasp the finance piece, because there is a learning curve there with how do 

I go from small business accounting to actually; how does that 

equate to me acquiring capital and financing my own business? So 

it is just if they have never done it, it is just something like if you 

tried to teach, if you said I want you to go be a gourmet chef, but 

you are someone who has not even ever boiled water before how 

would you do that? 

Mr. DELGADO. Right. I have boiled water. 

Ms. SAGESTER. I have a feeling you have. 

Mr. DELGADO. Just one more follow up. The Boot Camp piece. 

Are there pieces of the curriculum that are designed or different 

depending on the types of community? So whether it is a rural 

community versus an urban community, are there different techniques or is it all just more of a sort of basic line understanding 

of startup as opposed to the needs you might have for particular 

geographies? 

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Ms. SAGESTER. That is a good question by the way. There is 

the basic and then we, for example, we teach basic QuickBooks, but 

then for those that have been in business for a little while, then 

they have graduated up and they need training on intermediate 

QuickBooks. That is one example is say I am in a rural area and 

I have not really had much access to resources. What is going to 

happen is we are going to try to help bring that client up to speed. 

It means they are going to get more attention and handheld. We 

hold a lot of hands at the VBOC. So a lot more attention one-onone, not just the general classroom setting, until we get them to 

where they feel comfortable in starting and launching and growing 

their business. So, it does vary depending on their individual 

needs. 

Mr. DELGADO. Great. Thank you. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman—— 

Mr. DELGADO. I yield back my time. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. He yields back. 

I would like to go into a second round of questions. 

Well, I would like to share with you, and I know that you are 

all aware about these powerful numbers. In 2018, the State of the 

Woman-Owned Business Report shows how the number of womanowned businesses went from 402,000 in 1972 to 12.3 million in 

2018, and revenues increased from $8.1 billion to $1.8 trillion. 

Those are powerful numbers. And we all know that you serve close 

to one million businesses and we all know the return of that technical assistance. We have 29 to 30 million businesses, so there is 

so much potential if we could market those services and we could 

do better outreach. I do not know how can we tackle that because 

so many times people have come before our committee and said 

that they did not know about the existence of Women Business Development Centers or the Small Business Development Centers or 

Veterans Business Centers. And that question was asked before, 

but that is an area that we need to really think about, how can we 

expand our marketing tools to reach those underserved businesses 

that are not getting the kind of assistance that they need? 

Mr. Yancey? 

Mr. YANCEY. We have been very aggressive with what we have 

done in social media. And we had a social media audit in the last 

4 or 5 months and it says that we outperform standard nonprofits 

by a factor of about 10. We even looked at small for-profit organizations and find that we outperform. There is a point that you get 

to, even in social media, where your ability to grow is dependent 

on your ability to invest. And the things that we need to do, we 

boost stories. We do buy ad words regularly. We work really hard 

to find partners that will carry our message for us that are active 

in the space. And you have seen the list. That is a really good way 

to do it. 

Having said that, marketing campaigns are expensive, and they 

have to be consistent. They have to be long-term in order to create 

awareness that people will act on. You know, in an environment 

like we are in with funding like we have, it is difficult. Our goal 

quickly is to be 1 degree of separation from our client. So if they 

ask anybody in the entrepreneurship arena, how do they get help, 

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that person will think of SCORE. So we are working hard within 

that network to make sure there is awareness. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. So part of the mission, for example, 

of the Women Business Centers is to expand into underserved communities. What are you doing about that? 

Ms. HODGES. Well, I think the problem is even more dramatic 

than you characterized because you accounted only for the businesses that have already started. But what about the clients out 

there who want to start a business and do not know where to turn? 

And so I think it is a severe challenge. Reaching those socially and 

economically disadvantaged populations, it is part of our mission. 

And providing the services in these creative ways, crafting them 

specific to the communities in which they serve, help answer that 

question. And so each community is distinct. The way that we pull 

together the resources, the partners that are at the table here and 

others all come to bear. But I think it is worth repeating the fact 

that the access to capital is just a critical component. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. And in terms of new centers, could 

you explain the process that SBA uses to determine new centers, 

particularly in underserved communities? 

Ms. HODGES. No, Madam Chairwoman, I am not privy to their 

internal process to select locations. We are in conversations though 

about the future. I do not know what that looks like but I would 

hope that it would be strategic. I hope that we would not only be 

looking at communities where there is just a geographic absence of 

centers, but also where there is already service happening in a potential host organization with resources to serve. We should be able 

to entertain applications, I believe, for grants in those areas as 

well. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Mr. Rowe, any comments on that? 

Mr. ROWE. Well, just to follow on to what Ken says, every year, 

and this year it is March 20th, we have SBDC Day and we manage 

to trend up on Twitter to five, which is an amazing outreach. The 

problem is trying to stay up there without either being incredibly 

offensive or something is just almost impossible for us. And so I 

think one of the things that would be very helpful, something I 

have discussed with my membership, is it would be great if SBA 

would invest in public service announcements regarding small 

business development. You know, all of these resources, I went to 

the, Ad Council, for the television PSAs. Sadly, the buy-in is nearly 

$4 million. So that is out of reach for any of us. But collaboratively 

from the agency that would be a huge marketing tool. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. The gentleman is recognized, Mr. 

Chabot, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. I probably will not take 

up the whole 5 minutes, but I come around with a second question 

to you two folks, but not to you two folks. I said how great you 

were, Mr. Yancey, but let me ask you a question. 

How does SCORE go about recruiting the wide variety of mentors it takes to match the unique entrepreneurs that are out there? 

Mr. YANCEY. Recruiting is an activity these days that occurs 

not just at the chapter level but also at the national level. Our 

website is the number two source of new volunteers today. Our 

chapters look to make sure that they maintain an array of skills 

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26 

at the chapter that meets the needs of the community, and today, 

we are very focused on our need to be more diverse and better at 

serving all of the communities where we are located. I think our 

challenge, and Ms. Vela ́zquez has been kind enough to point it out 

over the years, we still need to do more to better reflect the communities that we serve from a race/ethnicity standpoint. And we 

are committed to that and we are working on that and we have 

made progress. And not good enough but we are working at it. 

Mr. CHABOT. All right. Thank you very much. 

And then finally, Ms. Sagester, my colleague from Ohio, Mr. 

Balderson got into this somewhat, but I will get a little different 

angle. Veterans often possess a unique skillset that they have acquired during their time in the military. In what ways do VBOCs 

tailor their curriculum to best utilize those skills and make sure we 

are able to get those veterans to either go through your program 

either to start up a company themselves or to become employed by 

one of them or to grow an existing company or whatever? 

Ms. SAGESTER. Well, one of the ways, the best way that we 

have found to do that is that one-on-one initial assessment. We do 

a one-on-one initial assessment where we are looking at the service 

member’s background. Like, what as their MOS when they were inservice. In other words, their military operation specialty. What experience do they have that is on the civilian side of their life? What 

experiences do they have? And then as well as like what goals they 

want to achieve, because we have to be able to marry where they 

are and what experience they have and talents to what their goal 

is. So that again, is part of where the magic happens is that oneon-one, face to face. We are sitting down, we are rolling our sleeves 

up, and we are starting from scratch and we are going to make this 

happen. So that assessment is crucial for that first step as to where 

we take the client to the second step. And Boots to Business oftentimes is the first step because they are transitioning out. And that 

is the first time we touch them. We call it a touch. We first meet 

them. And then they are invited for that assessment, the initial 

one-on-one and we go from there. But that is how we assess. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

And I will just conclude by I had somebody in my office. This was 

some years back. They were from, I believe, the American Trucking 

Institute, and they were talking about how we had a lot of our 

young men and women were coming back from Afghanistan, Iraq, 

et cetera, and they were driving multi-ton vehicles over there but 

at that point the unemployment rate was not as low as it is now, 

so it is tougher to get jobs. And their point was that a lot of these 

folk were underage to get their chauffeurs driving to drive the big 

rigs, so we needed to do something to change it. I know we were 

looking into that for a long time but some of those folks, as you 

know, they are not necessarily just employees of a trucking company, but they can become entrepreneurs, you know, and get a loan 

and own one of these big rigs and go around. A lot of them are 

independent agents. So I think we need to take all those things 

into consideration. 

Ms. SAGESTER. Absolutely. And those truckers make great logistician’s. 

Mr. CHABOT. Right. 

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Ms. SAGESTER. Small businesses. They really do. But you are 

exactly right. 

Mr. CHABOT. And at that time I think they said that there was 

an underserved need of about 100,000 drivers all over the country 

so we need to do a better job to get all those folks together. 

And thank again all of you. I thought this was a very good hearing. So I yield back. 

Chairwoman VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you. Your insightful 

information and recommendations have been very important and 

enlightening. 

Entrepreneurship is the backbone of our nation’s economy helping individuals pursue their dreams and become financially selfsufficient. SBA’s counseling and training programs are critical to 

their success. This hearing has been very informative and your insights are valuable. As we move forward with legislation to modernize these programs, it will be important to ensure that you have 

the resources you need to provide the counseling and training to 

America’s small business. 

I would ask unanimous consent that members have 5 legislative 

days to submit statements and supporting materials for the record. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

And if there is no further business to come before the committee, 

we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

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JIM HAGEDORN 

COMMl1T££ ON AGBJCUL lURE 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSiNESS 

!ongress of tbe ilnttcb j,tatcs 

j()ou!Jr of 1\rprrurntatlb~ 

li!J,uil)ingtOI\, 19( 2051C>-23ot 

February 27,2019 

Opening Remarks to Small Business Committee Hearing: Supporting America's Startups: 

Review of SBA Entrepreneurial Development Programs 

I would like to thank our witnesses for addressing our committee today. I look forward to 

hearing how each one of your organizations uniquely serve Veterans, Women & Minority 

entrepreneurs in my communities in Southern Minnesota. 

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy supporting many local jobs. In our district, 

tbere are over 1,200 independent small businesses and I applaud these hard-working men and 

women entrepreneurs for starting their businesses. In my district, 51% women owned businesses 

have been assisted by SBDC Minnesota. But 50% of my district consist of rural areas, so I hope 

to learn how your organizations can assist underserved communities and farm business 

entrepreneurs. 

I also want to encourage veterans, women & minority entrepreneurs who have great ideas and 

products to work with SBDC, SCORE, Women Business Center, & Veterans Outreach Centers 

so tbey can make their dream come true. One of the best indicators of a vibrant economy is the 

growth of small businesses. 

Growing up in the small town of Truman, Minnesota, I learned to love the main street businesses 

where everybody seem to know your name. These businesses add to the small-town charm and 

are inextricably linked with the surrounding community through job creation and outreach. 

I am committed to serving these main street businesses across my district to ensure that access to 

capital, counseling, business planning, and other resources is available regardless of your 

background. Whether you're a farmer, banker, engineer, or any other type of entrepreneur, we 

should be welcoming innovation and helping tum their dream into a business. 

Thank you again for taking the time to speak with us today. I yield back. 

Jim Hagedorn 

Member of Congress 

PnlNTrD ON RFCVClED PAPFH 
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Testimony 

of 

C. E. "Tee" Rowe 

President/CEO 

February 27, 2019 

Committee on Small Business 

US House of Representatives 

SBA's Entrepreneurial Development Programs 
30 

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Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member Chabot, Members of the Committee 

Thank you for inviting me to testify today on behalf of America's SBDCs. I am the President 

and CEO of America's SBDC, the Association that represents the nationwide small business 

development center (SBDC) system. 

For 40 years the SBDC network has been providing front line services to entrepreneurs and 

small business owners while growing and developing an infrastructure dedicated to assisting all 

small business owners. SBDCs focus on providing free one-on-one consulting and mentoring on 

how to improve, finance, market and manage their businesses. The result of our efforts, and 

the support of our host institutions and Congress, has been the establishment of a nationwide 

network of over 975 locations with over 4,000 dedicated professional counselors and business 

advisors that annually assist hundreds of thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs in 

every state and territory representing every conceivable type of business. 

How and Where SBDCs work 

SBDCs operate out of host institutions, primarily colleges and universities, and they 

operate (with some exceptions) statewide. California and Texas are the exceptions having 

six and four regional networks respectively. The host institution manages the operations 

of its SBDC network through its sub-centers and many of those are at other colleges, 

community colleges and chambers of commerce. Those host institutions and their partners 

contribute matching funds that exceed the federal funding. Many SBDCs are based at the 

business schools of their respective colleges and universities providing the ability to 

leverage the skills and knowledge of the professors and students with the practical 

experience of our advisers. 

Federal funding for SBDCs is allocated based on census data with a minimum funding level 

established for smaller states (VT, NH, SO, etc.) 

SBDCs provide services to small businesses at all stages of development. The mix of 

businesses usually varies depending on the region and their unique characteristics. A good 

rule of thumb is that we have about a 60/40 mix of existing and nascent (start-up) 

entrepreneurs. Of course, these ratios vary due to economic conditions and external 

factors such as disasters or market conditions. 

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SBDCs assist small businesses of all types, in all demographics and all regions. About 45% 

of our clients are women, and roughly 10% of our clients are veterans. Every year we 

provide over one and a half million hours of counseling and training to over 500,000 small 

business owners and their employees. 

SBDC assistance has provided significant results: 

From 2012 to 2018 SBDCs have helped their small business clients obtain over $30 billion in 

capital. They helped them increase their sales by over $40 billion and helped them create over 

538,000 new jobs. In addition, SBDCs have provided training to over 1 million entrepreneurs 

and their employees. 

The services SBDCs provide tend to be more in-depth, and our relationships often span years. 

The services will change as the business grows and its needs shift. I could spend a great deal of 

time discussing all the services offered by the SBDC network, and even then, I am sure I would 

miss many important contributions, but I would like to highlight some of the specific services. 

More important, I'd like to discuss how we focus on why SBDCs provide the services they 

provide. 

ACCREDITATION 

SBDCs are unique in that they are subject to accreditation. Each SBDC network is required to 

undergo accreditation at least every five years. Each accreditation review involves a week-long 

examination by an accreditation team, a rigorous self-study, interviews and written reports. 

The reports are reviewed by our accreditation committee and SBA. Our accreditation standards 

are based on the NIST/Malcolm Baldrige Standards for continuous quality improvement. These 

standards monitor the skills of our counselors, the strength of our SBDC management, the 

commitment of our host institutions, the strength of and adherence to strategic plans, and 

SBDC effectiveness/customer satisfaction. 

A key component of every SBDC's strategic plan is the needs assessment process. This focuses 

on the needs of our clients, the changing economy and ensuring that SBDC services keep up 

with needs of small business. As a result, SBDCs are offering a wide array of specialized services 

as well as general business advice. Let me touch on just a few of those services. 

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VETERANS 

SBDCs prioritize assistance to veterans- approximately 10% of our clients are veterans. We 

have specialized programs in several states with large veteran populations (Texas, New York, 

Florida, and Arkansas for example) to assist veterans both pre and post deployment. A few 

great examples are Veterans Entre Skills and OORAH program in New York, and the predeployment preparedness program in Virginia. Veterans consistently make up a highly 

entrepreneurial demographic and often base their businesses on a skill set acquired while 

serving our nation's defense; we believe they have earned our special attention. 

UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES 

The SBDC outreach to minority and underserved communities is also a significant priority. Our 

minority clientele comprises over 33% of our client base nationwide and our members support 

targeted outreach programs across the country. In New York for example, the SBDC network 

hosts the Organization for Latino Entrepreneurs (OLE) and in Maryland the SBDC network 

supported the Branch Avenue project, an inner-city business restoration program, as well as 

operating a Hispanic Business Center. ·in California our Humboldt University SBDC recently 

opened a Vietnamese Business Center. 

RURAL OUTREACH 

SBDCs are mandated to provide service to their entire state. Over the years SBDCs have 

recognized the difficulties faced by rural communities and have introduced initiatives to meet 

their needs. As an example, our Texas SBDC networks have hosted an annual Texas Rural 

Conference for the past four years in Waco and New Braunfels with a focus on bringing 

together economic development organizations to focus on the needs of entrepreneurs in rural 

communities. In the same vein, the Virginia SBDC supports a rural outreach program, the Small 

Town and Merchant Program to aid small independent retailers and restaurateurs-in small 

communities. Our Alabama SBDC network is initiating a Rural Strong initiative in cooperation 

with the USDA to expand it efforts in rural Alabama. 

EXPORTS 

Nationwide SBDCs have over 500 certified export assistance counselors to help small businesses 

reach the markets outside the US, where 95% of the world's markets reside. We partner with 

the US Census Bureau to provide training in US export regulations and in Massachusetts and 

Illinois, as well as other states the SBDC network is one of the key components of the state's 

export outreach program. 

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In New York, the SBDC runs an ambitious export program the International Business 

Development program or IBD. IBD has built a particular focus on helping small business access 

markets in China and has an office in Beijing. 

We are also involved in an effort to spread the SBDC model. Working with the Department of 

State SBDCs have been helping establish small business support organizations throughout 

South and Central America, an initiative called the "Small Business Network of the Americas". 

We consider this effort to have a vital role both in building markets and export relationships for 

our small business clients. As a result of our efforts, particularly through the South West Texas 

Border SBDC at UTSA we have helped establish small business development organizations in 

Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala and Panama. 

DISASTER ASSISTANCE 

One of the areas SBDCs are most proud of is our disaster assistance work. SBDCs play an 

integral role in disaster response and recovery across the country. SBDC counselors and 

advisers are often first on the scene helping set up business recovery centers and helping 

communities rebound from the damage. We work closely with state and federal agencies to 

make sure small businesses, the backbone of the community, are supported. In Florida, for 

example, the SBDC is designated as a primary disaster response organization. SBDCs don't 

merely respond, SBDCs offer significant resiliency training and advising to our clients. Helping 

clients be prepared is often the biggest part of their recovery, and we recognize that that not 

every disaster comes from a hurricane or an earthquake. An office fire, a burst pipe, whatever 

can be just as devastating to an individual business. 

CYBERSECURITY 

Three years ago, SBDCs began a concerted effort to provide cybersecurity training to our 

clients. We recognized that small business owners were being hindered by a lack of clear 

information on their vulnerabilities and the methods to reduce their risk. As a result, SBDCs 

have developed assessment tools and training to improve small business cybersecurity and 

alleviate their risk. Our centers in Michigan, Florida, Kansas and Texas, as well as others have 

put significant resources into this initiative and we are working to spread best practices to 

centers nationwide. In addition, through the PTACs SBDCs support we make sure that small 

business contractors remain up to date on federal cybersecurity requirements. 

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PROCUREMENT 

29 of the 94 procurement technical assistance centers operating across the country are 

supported by SBDCs. They offer in-depth assistance to small business owners trying to navigate 

the complexities of federal procurement. In addition, numerous SBDCs offer introductory 

courses on government contracting, and match making assistance for accessing government 

contracting opportunities. SBDCs also assist in navigating the 8(a), veteran-owned and womenowned business certification process. 

PROGRAM METRICS 

I could offer any number of "success stories" and in fact our annual report does. However, 

America's SBDC knows the saying, "The plural of anecdote is NOT data" and we respect it. 

We recently began collecting a new set of program metrics. Two of the metrics- 'new business 

starts" and "capital infusion" are holdovers. Two of them are new "jobs supported" and unique 

clients served". This year, as we get adjusted to the new collections, will be a "baseline" year 

for this effort. 

Our hope is to eventually have a larger discussion on the most efficient and effective ways to 

deliver services to small businesses. America's SBDCs and its members don't believe in a one 

size fits all approach to the delivery of services. We recognize our states and regions have 

different economies, resources and needs. What we believe is that the leveraging of the 

capabilities available must be accomplished in a more thoughtful and efficient fashion. 

Small businesses are focused on the bottom line. Growth in sales, investment and hiring are key 

indicators. Obtaining capital is usually the key measure. America's SBDC believes that access to 

capital is vital but, if that financing isn't leading to an improved bottom line it's just an output 

not an outcome. 

In the SBDC network we judge our success by the impact we have in helping our clients increase 

their sales and increase their job creation. We are proud of our efforts to help clients attract 

financing, nearly 6 billion dollars last year alone. We firmly believe that these metrics should be 

the building blocks for assessing the effectiveness of any small business assistance program. 

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The Government Performance and Results Act requires federal agencies to gauge their 

performance, and their stewardship of taxpayer dollars, by using and tracking outcome 

measures. If an agency or group of agencies is going to operate entrepreneurial development 

and assistance programs, they must focus on the items important to small business success. 

COLLABORATION 

As I said, many SBDC networks collocate and work with SCORE or WBCs or operate PTACs. This 

cooperation and collaboration is vital. We refer clients regularly because none of us can be all 

things to all small businesses. 

Virginia's SBDC network is a good example of the collaboration we try to achieve. In addition to 

veterans outreach the Virginia SBDC is collocated with the Women's Business Center of 

Northern Virginia, and advises small businesses in procurement, international trade and a host 

of other services. They also run STAMP, a program focused on rural Main Street merchants. 

SBDCs across the country offer procurement, rural tourism, energy conservation, international 

trade assistance. 

SBDCs are always trying to expand and improve our services to support the growing needs of 

the small business sector and to adapt to a changing business environment, and so are our 

partners but, sometimes it seems circumstances are pitting us against each other rather than 

working together. Programs and initiatives often arise that seem to duplicate the efforts of 

existing programs and ignore capabilities that are already in place in existing networks. This is 

not anything new, it happens under every Administration. We believe that this happens 

because people don't realize what's out there already or that the foundation of the SBDC 

network and other programs is designed for expanded services. 

REAUTHORIZATION 

America's SBDCs strongly support reauthorization of SBA's Entrepreneurial Development 

programs. It has been about ten years since the programs were last updated and it is time to 

review, renew and reinvigorate the commitment to assisting small business. 

I would like to point out a few areas where we believe SBDC services and our relationship with 

SBA, and other agencies could be improved to increase the support offered to small business. 

1. Clarify and strengthen the SBA/SBDC partnership through clear negotiation and 

collaboration. 

2. Clarify SBDC marketing and co-sponsorship abilities. 

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3. Set forth priorities and goals for the entrepreneurial development programs that reflect 

21" century economics and opportunities. 

4. Strengthen the ability for all federal agencies, and the SBA entrepreneurial development 

programs to serve all counties- Rural and inner city alike. 

5. Increase SBA/FEMA disaster collaboration with SBDCs 

6. Recognize the variety and scope of the entrepreneurial development programs and 

focus on broadening outreach rather than worrying about overlap. 

7. Increase the SBDC authorization level to $200 million, and our partners accordingly. 

8. Involve SBA's ED programs in workforce development, and apprenticeships. 

9. Support increases in ED program appropriations to build this capacity. 

In closing, thank you for letting me share our thoughts. I look forward to your questions. 

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~~ASSOCIATION OF '-\J WOMEN'S BUSINESS CENTERS 

Testimony of 

Corinne Hodges 

On behalf of the Association of Women's 

Business Centers 

to the 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Small Business: 

Supporting America's Startups: Review ofSBA 

Entrepreneurial Development Programs 

February 27, 2019 

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Testimony of Corinne Hodges: Supporting America's Startups: Review of SBA 

Entrepreneurial Development Programs 

Thank you Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member Chabot, and distinguished Members of the 

Committee for the opportunity to share this testimony with you. My name is Corinne Hodges, 

and I serve as the CEO of the Association of Women's Business Centers. 

The Association of Women's Business Centers (AWBC) supports the national network of 

Women's Business Centers (WBCs) by providing training, mentoring, programming, and 

advocacy with the goal of improving services to women entrepreneurs. The A WBC's 

membership includes every WBC throughout the United States. As an advocate for this critical 

program, it is an honor to be here today. 

I would like to thank the Committee for holding this hearing and for the willingness to hear 

about the progress we are all making to serve American small businesses. Each Small Business 

Administration (SBA) resource partner provides services in distinct ways, and many of those 

differences stem from the original statutes that created our programs. 

As you know, the Women's Business Center (WBC) program is a public-private partnership with 

over 30 years of success in providing training, counseling, mentoring, and access to capital to 

women entrepreneurs across the country. Our network of 114 WBCs reaches into urban, 

suburban, and rural communities alike to assist America's job creators, particularly the most 

disadvantaged, in launching and growing their own businesses. 

Women's Business Centers are focused on being effective and efficient resources for one of the 

fastest growing sectors of the economy. Our continued growth leaves an enormous footprint of 

successful business owners and job creators. In fiscal year 2017 our centers reached more than 

148,000 clients and conducted over 93,000 hours of counseling and over 15,000 training sessions 

in over 35 languages. In 2015, according to the most recently available data, WBCs assisted with 

nearly $429 million in private capital infusion. 1 This success is in part a result of the fact that 

approximately 35 percent ofWBCs are co-located with a microlending program and many 

collaborate with local lenders and microlenders as a way to help more women entrepreneurs 

access capital. 

The WBC program continues to fulfill its Congressional mandate of ensuring that women's 

entrepreneurial drive is fueled by adequate training, resources, and access to capital to keep the 

small business engine of the economy thriving. It is the only program statutorily dedicated to 

serving "economically and socially disadvantaged" women.2 Nonetheless, Congress should act to 

strengthen and modernize the program, in turn supporting entrepreneurial growth nationwide. 

History of the WBC Program 

1 From the 2019 CBJ: "Women's Business Centers (WBCs) helped many small businesses work with microlending 

institutions, helping them access millions of dollars in loans." Pg. 43 

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The Women's Business Center Program was created by Congress 31 years ago as part ofH.R. 

5050 (P.L. I 00-533), the Women's Business Ownership Act of 1988. It was landmark legislation 

at that time, advancing the women's business agenda. The legislative history of that bill noted 

that despite making enormous contributions to the American economy, "women, as a group, are 

subjected to discrimination in entrepreneurial endeavors due to their gender ... adversely 

impacting the ability to raise or secure capital, to acquire managerial talents, and to capture 

market opportunities."3 

H.R. 5050 not only established the WBC program, but it also authorized seed funding for WBCs 

via the SBA, specifying their role in providing technical assistance to women business ownersparticularly those who are socially or economically disadvantaged- "from start up to success."4 

In its first year, the WBC program received $2 million and funded four centers. After I 0 years, 

the program grew to 70 centers and $12 million in funding. Since then, in line with the explosive 

growth of women entrepreneurship, the program has increased from those four "demonstration 

sites" to a proven network of 114 grants leveraged to more than 150 locations in 48 states and 

territories. Unfortunately, resources for the program have not grown in parallel-and the more 

than 50% increase in centers over the last 15 years has not been matched by a comparative 

increase in funding. 

Throughout its 31-year history the program has continued to be the source for counseling, 

training, and access to capital for hundreds of thousands of women every year. In the last decade 

alone, WBCs have served more than two million women entrepreneurs, leading to the creation 

and expansion of tens of thousands of new businesses and jobs. 

The WBC Program Today 

WBCs serve women entrepreneurs in every stage of the business continuum. In 2015, the SBA 

found that WBC client businesses averaged seven years in age and that 15% were start-ups, 

while 26% were in business more than 10 years. 5 Many of the training courses offered by WBCs 

focus on business and financial planning to help clients improve their financial literacy. WBCs 

also provide direct one-on-one advising to clients and help them access loans, federal contracts, 

and exporting opportunities. 

The services provided to clients have a profound impact on the outcome of their companies, and 

subsequently their local communities. According to the SBA Office of Entrepreneurial 

Development (OED) 2015 Report, the most recently released report, 96% of WBC clients 

reported revenue growth, totaling a staggering $658 million dollars 6 This led to one in ten 

businesses hiring at least one new employee, creating nearly 25,000 jobs. The annual reviews of 

the program submitted to Congress by the SBA show that 2015 was not an outlier; since 

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FY20 I 0, WBCs have surpassed their SBA job creation and training goals. 7 In fiscal year 2017, 

WBCs supported the creation of 17,000 new businesses, nearly 59% above the target set by the 

SBA. In that same year, WBCs reached over 148,000 small business owners and saw an almost 

20% increase in the number of clients advised.8 

WBCs have played an increasing role in fueling the growth of minority-owned businesses as 

well; 45% of clients in 2016 were minorities. Focus on minority women entrepreneurship is 

critical; while the number of women-owned businesses grew 58% from 2007 to 2018, firms 

owned by women of color grew at a rate nearly three times that, at an astounding 163%.9 As of 

2018, women of color account for 47% of all women-owned businesses and make up 64% of all 

new women-owned businesses launched each day. 10 This diversity has been matched by 

expanded abilities of the centers. 64% percent ofWBCs provide programming in two or more 

languages and overall, WBC services are provided in more than 35 languages. 

Beyond providing services in multiple languages, WBCs meet the needs of their communities by 

offering flexible hours, including weekends and evenings, and allowing children to attend 

training classes with their mothers. These are particularly important aspects for a program that 

primarily services women. 

This differentiation of services has not impacted the ability of every center to provide high 

quality training and counseling to all its clients. As the National Women's Business Council 

(NWBC) found: 

Successful outcomes (clients served, businesses started, jobs created) are not dependent on the 

size, age, or location of the center: rural centers were as successful as those located in urban 

areas; high poverty locations had as many successful outcomes as did lower poverty locations; 

and stand-alone centers were as successful as those that were co-located with other 

organizations.'' 

One reason why WBCs are able to meet the unique needs of their communities is that centers 

design their own programs and delivery models with their communities in mind. 

Finally, and perhaps most critically, the WBC program has proven to be a good investment of 

taxpayer dollars. Private sector fundraising, enhanced by the visibility of the SBA partnership, 

7 U.S. Small Business Administration (2019). FY 2019 CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET JUSTIFICATION AND FY 2017 

ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT pg. 84 https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/aboutsbaarticle/SBA FY 19 508· 

Finai-FINAL.PDF 

8 1bid 

9 American Express OPEN 2018 State of Women-Owned Business Report (2018) pg. S 

https://about.americanexpress.com/files/doc library/file/2018-state·of-women-owned-businesses-report.pdf 

10 Ibid pg. 6 

11 Womenable (2006). The Performance, Progress and Promise of Women's Business Centers in the United States: 

A Summary of Three Research Studies, p. 2. Available at 

http:(/www.womenable.com/content/userfile_s/ResearchinBrief WBC studies.pdf 

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helps to match federal dollars more than three to one. 12 For every one federal dollar invested in 

the program, the WBC program returns $46 to the economy. 13 The proven return on the program 

is underscored by the key fact that WBCs serve a unique population that otherwise would not 

receive the targeted training and counseling needed. 

Our Role in SBA Services 

The WBC program and A WBC work collaboratively with our resource partners. As shared by 

the testimony of my colleagues, we care most that the entrepreneur is being served-not who is 

serving them. Often WBCs will refer entrepreneurs to other services, including Small Business 

Development Centers (SBDCs), Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs), SCORE 

counselors, Veterans Business Outreach Centers (VBOCs), Community Development Financial 

Institutions (CDF!s), and more. 

Nonetheless, the WBC program was created because of the need for services that addressed the 

unique challenges faced by women. While there has been concern that WBCs may duplicate 

services provided by other resource partners, available data indicates that this is not the case. A 

study by NWBC found that WBCs saw no difference in outcomes if there was an SBDC located 

nearby, which indicates that WBCs and SBDCs are not competitive with one another for clients, 

either because they are serving different populations or because many clients receive services 

from more than one resource partner. 14 This also indicates the high demand for services. 

Moreover, latest figures find more than 30 million entrepreneurs in this country, and only 1.5 

million receive support from SEA-supported programs. There is more need than can be met by 

any one of us alone. 

In many ways, the nuances and differences ofWBCs stem from the statute that created the 

program. For example, whereas all SBDC are hosted by a university, WBCs can stand alone or 

be paired with different types of institutions. This flexibility is important. Most WBCs are hosted 

within a larger economic development organization or university, however, older and, for the 

most part, larger WBCs are stand-alone organizations which provide a robust diversity of 

services that often include a variety of sector-specific expertise and access to capital. 

The statute that created WBCs expressly requires that the program serve a significant number of 

economically and socially disadvantaged individuals, including women and minorities-the only 

resource partner expressly required to do so. As a result, WBCs make concerted efforts to reach 

underserved populations. A recent A WBC survey found 64% of visitors were economically 

12 AWBC 2013 Economic Impact Survey (latest available data). The survey found average center revenues to be 

$635,668, of which a maximum could be $150,000 from SBA. 

13 SBA OED 2015 Report, p. 39. In 2015, the program received $14.5 million in federal funding and generated $658 

in revenue growth for client companies. 14 Womenable (2006). The Performance, Progress and Promise of Women's Business Centers in the United States: 

A Summary of Three Research Studies, pg. 3. Available at 

http://www.womenable.com/content/userfiles/Researchin8rief WBC studies.pdf 

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disadvantaged. 15 Data from 2006 showed that two-thirds of clients reported a total household 

income below $50,000, and fewer than 50% had a high school education. 

What makes WBCs unique is the depth and breadth of their services. Women come to WBCs 

because they address four critical issues: competence, confidence, capital, and connection. 

Women view their local WBC as a trusted advisor and partner for the lifetime of their company. 

A study ofWBC clients done by the Center for Women's Business Research found that, aside 

from general business management information, gaining financial management skills, and 

learning about the legal aspects of organizing a business, what the clients valued highly from 

their experience in the center was finding a community of other women with whom to build 

relationships. According to survey data, interest driven programming and a focus on 

relationships, such as mentorship, are critical to overcoming both situational and cultural barriers 

faced by women attempting to start businesses, particularly those that are economically and 

socially disadvantaged. 16 It is clear from client testimonials that WBCs provide a safe place to 

learn, peer support, mentoring opportunities, and a sense of community that optimizes the 

training and technical assistance provided. The result is real economic impact felt by the client 

and their community. 

Take for example, Janay Brower, a client of Grand Rapids Opportunity for Women, the WBC 

which services Grand Rapids, Michigan, who perhaps put it best. She owns an upcycling 

manufacturing company, Public Thread, which originally launched in her kitchen in 2016. Her 

mission was to create a sustainable business that supported people in her community while 

honoring the environment through a closed-loop textile manufacturing concept. This culture of 

women supporting women, and valuing people beyond numbers, is what motivated her and the 

support network in her community to move her business out of her kitchen and into a 

commercial manufacturing location in an Opportunity Zone. As she puts it, women are uniquely 

positioned to see the long-term benefits that sustainable businesses such as hers can bring to 

communities, rather than just the short-term financial gains. 

In summary, WBCs provide a community-specific critical blend of training, counseling services, 

and access to capital aimed at serving a broad cross-section of the population including minority, 

socially and economically disadvantaged women, as well as men. 17 The WBCs strategic 

approach is relational: they establish long-term relationships with clients and serve them from 

inception through the lifespan of their businesses, creating a cycle of value added services. WBC 

services are distinctly different, yet complementary, to services provided by other SBA resource 

partners. 

15 AWBC 2013 Economic Impact Survey (latest available data). 16 Langowitz, Nan, Norean Sharpe, and Mary Godwyn. (2006). Women's Business Centers in the United States: 

Effective Entrepreneurship Training and Policy Implementation. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 19:2. 

17 Numerous federal statutes including the 1964 Civil Rights Act (P.L. 88-352), as well as judicial decisions based on 

the 14'" amendment of the Constitution require federally funded programs to provide services regardless of race, 

sex, or national origin. Grant proposals for the WBC program, for example, require a non-discrimination statement. 

In our view, the attendance of male entrepreneurs is a testament to the equality of services provided. 

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Successes 

WBC clients consistently say that they come to the WBCs not just for the business education and 

consulting, but for the supportive environment that helps build self-efficacy and confidence in 

their ability to succeed. The evidence bears this out. Evaluation data from WBC programs 

indicate that women who receive business assistance from their programs build larger 

businesses, create more jobs, and have a significantly higher survival rate than the national 

average. 

For example, Women's Economic Ventures (WEV), which serves Ventura and Santa Barbara 

Counties, developed the Thrive in Five® program. Clients participating in this long-term 

program show median sales of$400,000 and nave created an average of five new jobs. Client 

businesses snow an 80% survival rate after tive years as opposed to the national average of 50% 

t<x all businesses in the U.S., and over 40% ofWEV's clients have employees compared to the 

national average of only 12% of all woman-owned firms. Moreover, 85% ofWEV's clients who 

were in poverty at intake have moved beyond poverty. 

Such success is visible throughout the program where local centers tailor their efforts to clients. 

Brooklyn Women's Business Center@ the LDCENY, in New York, found that a number of their 

clients were interested in the fashion and beauty industries, so they have created training and 

service offerings to meet the needs within that industry. One of their most successful clients now 

leads training on fashion and beauty, and she has partnered with the center to facilitate seminars 

and workshops on those topics. With the growth of interest in these areas, the center has also 

brought in beauty experts, celebrity hair and makeup stylists, 0 Magazine, and intellectual 

property experts to help protect their clients' creations. The center plans to expand further by 

bringing in illustrators to teach clients how to sketch designs for product labeling. and by 

purchasing sewing machines and offering sewing classes onsite for those interested in creating 

fashion prototypes or textile manufacturing. 

The REI Women's Business Center, headquartered in Durant, Oklahoma and covering the state, 

offers the opportunity for their clients to expand markets by making regular trips to nearby 

Dallas, Texas and the 15-floor, 5 million square foot Dallas Market Center. In Portland, Oregon, 

Mercy Corps Northwest Women's Business Center partners with a regional corrections facility to 

offer entrepreneurial training to returning citizens, as well as a six-week business foundation 

course entirely in Russian to serve a local immigrant population. The Denver Women's 

Business Center in Colorado offers the "ProBoPat Initiative" in partnership with the U.S. Patent 

and Trade Office (USPTO), to develop patents for low-income inventors. The Patent Office has 

issued 26 patents to inventors in the ProBoPat program for products such as an assistive 

technology navigation system for a sight impaired person, snow board bindings and mounting 

system, and a sushi rolling machine. 13 of the patents issued to ProBoPat inventors were issued 

in 2018. 

Finally, Women's Business Development Center in Chicago, Illinois created the Developing 

Your Childcare Business course designed to provide business insight to prospective and existing 

child care entrepreneurs for home and center-based businesses. This program was created 21 

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years ago and throughout the last two decades it has helped fuel the creation of new center-based 

childcare businesses, as well as supported the expansion and growth of home-based businesses 

into center-base businesses. 

What is Needed 

The aforementioned growth in women entrepreneurs, particularly minority women 

entrepreneurs, makes the WBC program more relevant than ever. Everyday thousands of wouldbe job creators, existing business owners, and innovators seek WBC assistance to move their 

business forward. Many centers are ten or more years old and are established and respected 

resources in their communities. These centers consistently demonstrate an ability to effectively 

and efficiently serve entrepreneurs and they deserve a modernization of the grant system and 

access to additional resources to expand their impact. While the network of centers spans across 

48 states and territories, too many communities do not have access to the unique services 

provided by WBCs. In addition to allowing for the expansion of existing centers, new centers are 

needed in geographies so far unaddressed by the WBC program. Moreover, the program 

continues to suffer from arbitrary requirements and limitations that constrain the ability of 

centers to succeed. 

We need legislation that re-authorizes the WBC program with some key changes. First, since the 

program was established in 1988, the total amount of the grant available from SBA to qualified 

WBCs has remained $150,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation, that amount in 2019 dollars would 

now be $319,161.45 18 • Legislation to reauthorize the program should increase that cap of 

$150,000 per center and bring that number more in line with the realities of the 21" century 

allowing well-established centers to expand their impact with increased funds. 

Second, we need legislation that removes unnecessary requirements that force resources to be 

diverted from training and counseling to back-office bureaucracy. For example, if a center raises 

more money than is required to meet the federal match that additional money is subject to federal 

spending guidelines and verification requirements even though it is not taxpayer money. This is a 

key inefficiency in the program and actually provides a disincentive for centers to overmatch 

federal funds. 

In addition to re-authorization, the upward trajectory of the program is deserving of more federal 

funding. Congress should focus on providing a robust level of funding for programs that have a 

proven track record of success. Increased funding for the program is critical. Ensuring adequate 

resources is a key component to continuing the growth of the WBC program and women's 

entrepreneurship more broadly. 

Lastly, we need more data. As discussed, women business owners have almost unlimited 

potential for continued growth, but significant barriers still remain. Without updated figures from 

the U.S. Census Bureau, and the SBA's Office of Entrepreneurial Development, it is difficult for 

Congress, the Administration, or even advocates like A WBC to quantifY just how much growth 

18 CPI Inflation calculator available at b.J:_tps:Uwww.officialdata.org/1760-dollars·in-2018?amount=l 

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is happening, in what industries, and how to further foster an environment for women's 

entrepreneurship. 

Increasing Awareness 

Strategically increasing the number of centers to reach women in previously underserved areas is 

not enough to increase the awareness of the WBC program among the potential client base. 

SBA 's office Entrepreneurial Development has collaborated to help increase program awareness, 

but much more work is needed to make the program known to American women. Today, we ask 

that you and your colleagues promote the WBC program in your districts where centers exist. 

And, we look forward to finding new ways to build on the current outreach methods which 

include earned media, social media, and event marketing. Clearly, creating awareness of our 

program nationwide is expensive, but allocating resources to serving the client takes precedent in 

the day to day operation of a center. 

Conclusion 

In the formation of the WBC program, Congress determined that ongoing limitations on access 

to capital and markets warranted the creation of a network of centers to assist women 

entrepreneurs. Those challenges persist, as must the commitment of a new Congress to 

advancing policies that foster the expansion of women's business ownership. We appreciate this 

Committee's willingness to hear from the programs that are serving entrepreneurs across the 

country. 

The WBC program is a proven program, an effective public-private partnership, and fills a 

growing need for the distinct population we serve. The directors and staff at WBCs are 

committed to helping women and their families prosper and achieve financial security through 

business ownership. I remain in awe of our centers incredible power to bring a dream, an 

innovation, or an idea to fruition. 

We urge Congress to strengthen the WBC program and provide the necessary investment women 

entrepreneurs need to reach their full potential making a substantial impact to the American 

economy. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I am happy to answer any questions. 

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Ken Yancey 

Chief Executive Officer 

SCORE Association 

Statement to the Small Business Committee 

United States House of Representatives 

February 27, 2019 

Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member Chabot, and members of the committee: my name is 

Ken Yancey and I am the CEO of SCORE. Thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony to 

the committee regarding SCORE's programs and services, history, and plans for the future. 

Thank you as well to the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) for your continued 

support. 

First and foremost, I wish to thank you for supporting SCORE's 2019 expected appropriation of 

$11.7 million. We are very grateful for this funding, and the money is immediately impacting the 

small businesses owners that SCORE volunteers serve in their local communities every day, 

resulting in significant business creation and job growth, as detailed below. 

ABOUT SCORE: MISSION, VISION AND VALUES 

SCORE is the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, with more than 

11,000 volunteers across 300 chapters offering free and confidential advice, and free or low-cost 

educational workshops to current and aspiring small business owners. 

Founded in !964 as a resource partner of the SBA, SCORE has now helped more than 10 million 

entrepreneurs. SCORE's mission is to foster vibrant small business communities through 

mentoring and education, and we envision every person having the support necessary to thrive as 

a small business owner. 

Today, SCORE stands as a uniquely American organization in its synthesis oftwo historic 

national ideals: the entrepreneurial spirit and voluntecrism. 

SCORE has a strong set of core values, which we define as: 

• Clients Matter: Our clients' success is our success. 

• Small Business Matters: Small business is the engine of our national economy through 

business formation, job creation and wealth building. Small businesses are critical to 

vibrant communities in our society. 

• Giving Back Matters: We give volunteers, stakeholders and sponsors the ability to give 

back to communities through their support of SCORE. Successful small business owners 

understand the importance of giving back to their communities. 

• Volunteers Matter: SCORE is comprised of volunteer business people helping small 

business people solve business problems. Volunteers give freely of their time, energy and 

knowledge to help others. 

• Experience Matters: The truest measure of our mission and our service is ensuring that 

our clients have a positive experience. A volunteer's experience also matters, as their 
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relevant knowledge, wisdom and experience serve our clients through mentoring and 

education. Finally, the volunteer experience with SCORE matters, and we ensure that 

volunteers find value and satisfaction while engaged with SCORE. 

• Relationships Matter: In relationships, we act with integrity, respect, honesty, purpose, 

and professionalism. We listen with an open mind, encourage and openly communicate 

with all people seeking help from SCORE. Personal, long-term relationships are a driver 

of small business success. Community alliances are critical to the success of SCORE. 

• Diversity Matters: We believe in the importance, value and power of diversity- diversity 

of people and diversity of thought. The diversity ofrace, gender, ethnicity, geography 

and experience is important and valuable in SCORE. We strive to achieve diversity of 

our volunteer corps, statl board and clients. 

• Lifelong Learning Matters: We believe that small business owners who are lifetime 

learners adapt to change more readily and are more successful. Volunteers who are 

lifelong learners remain active, and achieve personal satisfaction and growth. 

SCORE's IMPACT ON AMERICAN SMALL BUSINESSES AND THE ECONOMY 

Small businesses account for 99.7 percent of all employer firms and generate more than 50 

percent of the non-farm private gross domestic product. They employ more than half of all 

private sector employees. In this way, these small businesses are the engine of America's job 

creating economy, the fabric of our local communities, and the embodiment of the American 

dream. 

In FY18, SCORE helped its clients to create more than 32,387 new small businesses, creating 

l 03,300 non-owner jobs, and 135,687 total jobs. 

SCORE remains the most efficient and effective business fonnation and job creation engine 

funded by the Federal Government. Our cost to create a job is estimated at $81, while the cost to 

create a business is just $340. This efficiency in creating jobs and businesses provides a 

tremendous return on all federal dollars invested, and, in fact, makes money for the American 

taxpayer. 

In FY18 alone, SCORE clients returned an estimated $47.16 in new tax revenue to the federal 

treasury for every $1 appropriated to SCORE. This efficiency far exceeds the return on 

investment generated by any other job creation initiative or business creation initiative funded by 

the federal government. SCORE maximizes every dollar received from the federal government, 

because our II ,000 mentors and field managers are all volunteers. 

In FYI8, 138,394 unique clients were served via SCORE mentoring, with many more served 

through educational programming. 165,425 clients attended online workshop sessions, and 

249,870 clients attended local workshops. 

SCORE's services help keep our clients in business. 91% of SCORE clients who were in 

business, or started a business, when working with SCORE in FYI8 were still in business at the 

end ofFYI8. 67% of SCORE clients grew their revenues in FYI8, by an average amount of 

32%. 
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While these statistics are impressive in aggregate, the faces and stories behind the numbers tell 

the true story of SCORE's impact on small business success. 

SCORE Client Success Story- Alliance for Positive Change 

SCORE client Sharen Duke runs the nonprofit Alliance for Positive Change, which improves the 

lives of New Yorkers living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS by helping them to make lasting 

positive changes towards health, housing, recovery and self-sufficiency. Alliance's innovative 

peer education and access to medical care helps people manage and overcome addiction, escape 

homelessness, get back to work, and find community. 

Founded in 1990 using donated office space and a staff of just three, Alliance has now grown to 

a staff of more than 170, with 130 additional peer interns, and a budget of nearly $25 million. 

More than 5,000 clients come to Alliance for services each year, and 14,000 people are reached 

through Alliance's peer outreach and harm reduction education in communities across New York 

City. Alliance was recognized by SCORE as the 2014 Outstanding Non-Profit Organization. 

In 2010, Duke reached out to SCORE for help handling the impact of the economic recession on 

her business, having never received formal training in finance. 

She says: "I turned to SCORE and was matched with two amazing mentors who were able to 

help me develop a business plan that included clear and compelling presentation of agency 

financial statements, as well as marketing strategies for outreach to commercial banks, so that I 

would be able to establish the ideal banking relationship for Alliance that included a line of 

credit." 

Mentor Munir Saltoun, a retired corporate CFO, helped Duke review Alliance financials and 

create a strategic financial plan to restructure the organization. Mentor Alvin Rose lin helped to 

create a marketing plan. "Together, we targeted banks, went to meetings, and ultimately 

persuaded Chase to continue our banking relationship. It was a very successful endeavor," says 

Duke. 

Duke has continued to work with her SCORE mentors on a new round of strategic planning. This 

new stage included a merger-the acquisition of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Centerand an expansion of existing peer training services, as well as a treatment adherence support 

program for people living with HIV and AIDS. 

"I am proud to say that, from 2012 to 2017, Alliance doubled our organization's budget from $10 

million to $22 million, and SCORE was extremely helpful in this growth and success," Duke 

says. 

SCORE Client Success Story- Thompson Tee 

SCORE clients Randy Choi and Billy Thompson founded their business, Thompson Tee, in 

response to their own suffering from hyperhidrosis, a condition involving excessive sweating 

that impacts the activities, quality oflife and emotional well-being of the 15 million Americans 

who suffer from it. 
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Their line of specially-designed, patented technology undershirts and t-shirts for men and women 

has changed their clients' lives by making them feel more secure and confident during their daily 

activities. 

Thompson and Choi spent more than I 0 years developing their products, before opening their 

online store in 2012. Thompson says they initially turned to SCORE because, "We were broke ... 

[There were] so many low points, many mistakes were made," he admits, "[but] we persevered." 

Choi and Thompson benefited from the diverse knowledge of SCORE mentors John Pietro and 

Larry Tucker in the Orange County, California office, consulting with them on everything from 

finding their business's focus, to developing their business model and improving their digital 

marketing. 

Thompson credits his SCORE mentors with, "provid[ing) information about banking, loans, 

distribution channels, manufacturing reps, marketing seminars," and more. 

Choi says, "When we first started out, we were trying everything ... infomercials ... just 

everything." 

"We've learned to focus on what's important," Thompson says. 

Thompson Tee now sells to consumers in more than 135 countries, with more than $10 million 

in sales. The company has been featured on several TV shows, including Shark Tank- where 

they successfully raised $700,00 in funding- Counterpart and The Doctors. 

ThompsonTee.com not only sells the famous Thompson Tee, but also offers information and 

advice about safe and effective hyperhidrosis solutions. Choi and Thompson's motto: "Freedom. 

Comfort. Confidence." informs every product decision they make. 

To accomplish their mission, Thompson and Choi employ a diverse staff. Thompson explains, 

"Randy is Korean. I'm half-Korean, half-Caucasian. Our employees are diverse; the majority 

being non-Caucasian. While it wasn't the mission of our company to hire a diverse staff, our 

company reflects the great diversity of southern California. And it is all those different 

perspectives that makes our company stronger. We treat our employees really well. Pay well. At 

the end of the day, we're hiring whoever can do the job best, regardless of color/ethnicity." 

In 2018, Thompson Tee was named the Outstanding Diverse Business SCORE Award winner. 

Thompson says he and Choi are most proud of, "The lives we are improving. We're giving 

people confidence." 

HISTORY 

The story of SCORE's 55-year history begins with the SBA. In 1953, the Small Business Act 

was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the SBA was created. The law said 

the federal government "should aid, counsel, assist and project the interests of small business." 

The same year, Maurice duPont Lee of Wilmington, Delaware gathered a small group of retired 

executives, and formed a consulting and advisory service for small businesses. 
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Ten years later, in 1963, more than 50 independent groups operated across the country, providing 

low-cost or no-cost business mentoring. On October 5, 1964, SBA Administrator Eugene P. 

Foley officially united independent efforts to launch the national volunteer group called 

S.C.O.R.E. (The Service Corps of Retired Executives), comprised of its first 2,000 members. 

Walter H. Channing of Detroit, Michigan, was named the first president of the national 

organization in 1970. During the same decade, individual chapters were formed, and SCORE 

was formally incorporated into a nonprofit association in 1975. In 1978, SCORE welcomed its 

two-millionth client. 

In 1996, SCORE embraced new technology and began to offer email mentoring services to 

clients. Other significant national achievements during this time period include the inaugural 

(2003) USA Freedom Corps Award for exemplary volunteer service, presented by then SBA 

Administrator Hector Barreto, and the 2004 Award of Excellence from the American Society of 

Association Executives, which celebrated SCORE's positive impact on American society. 

SCORE celebrated its 351

h anniversary (in 1999) and 40th anniversary (in 2004) at the White 

House. The new century ushered in an era of increased emphasis on volunteer training and 

education. In the year 2000, SCORE restructured itself to include a governing board of directors 

and an operating management team of district directors. The same year, SCORE held its first 

SCORE District Directors Con terence to train volunteers for senior leadership roles in SCORE, 

an event which has now evolved to become the annual National Leadership Conference. By 

2001, SCORE mentors were donating more than I million hours of service to the small business 

community each year. 

In 2007, SCORE expanded its service offerings by adding free online workshops to the national 

website. One year later, SCORE began to customize its online resources for specific 

demographics of entrepreneurs, including women, minorities, manufacturers, military veterans, 

baby boomers, young entrepreneurs and rural entrepreneurs. 

Today, more than 10 million entrepreneurs have been mentored by SCORE or attended SCORE 

workshops. 

CORE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES 

Mentoring 

At 11,000 strong, SCORE is proud to be the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert 

business mentors, and we know that our volunteers are the lifeblood of SCORE. The majority of 

our mentors are current or former business executives and entrepreneurs, giving them firsthand 

experience that they pass on to our clients. 

In FY18, SCORE mentors donated an incredible 4,335, 760 hours of total service to mentoring 

and educating our clients, with an average 7.58 hours per week, per volunteer. Through this 

generosity and the wisdom oftheir firsthand business experience, our volunteers have a 

profoundly positive effect on our small business owner clients, which, in turn, positively impacts 

their communities. By creating meaningful, and often long-term relationships with our clients, 
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SCORE mentors help clients to start new businesses or operate existing small businesses more 

efficiently, effectively and with greater success. Mentors provide the personal experience, 

practical knowledge and emotional support that clients need to thrive in the small business arena, 

offering information and strategies for improvement. 

Different types of volunteers include mentors, who offer confidential business mentoring 

services, either in person or online, subject matter experts, who provide focused knowledge 

based on their professional skills or industry, workshop presenter, who lead local workshops, 

seminars and events, and administrators, who share their skills in marketing, tech, finance or 

fundraising, in support of chapter operations. 

SCORE's Online Reach 

SCORE's robust distance learning program reaches audience members who cannot easily attend 

a local workshop, or who prefer to learn virtually. Knowing that we must meet clients "where 

they are" and provide services when it is most convenient to them, SCORE has developed a 

comprehensive distance learning program that features webinars, virtual conferences and video 

mentoring. 

SCORE.org National Website 

The score.org national website and individual chapter websites serve as the main portals for all 

client-facing services. The national website offers educational resources for distance learning, 

including webinars, workshops, customizable templates and tools, and access to mentoring 

services. 

3,292,173 unique visitors accessed score.org in FYI8, with a 7.87% conversion rate to SCORE's 

core services of mentoring and workshops. Built-in mobile responsiveness greatly improves the 

user experience across mobile devices, and enhanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

capabilities make it easy for clients to find and access website resources. Educational content on 

the website is chosen based on the topics and trends that matter to clients, as determined by client 

feedback on individual articles, marketing focus groups, and post-webinar surveys. 

The website makes it easy for clients to connect with mentors and resources by allowing clients 

to browse the pool of mentors, filtering by keywords, area of expertise, industry, language, and 

location. These mentor profiles allow clients to select the volunteers whose experience they feel 

most benefits them. 

A mentoring widget provides quick access to SCORE mentoring and services on third-party 

sites. This pop-up box allows users to connect with a SCORE mentor without ever leaving the 

partner site, and with minimal administrative burden on the partner. More than a dozen partners 

have installed the widget code, including the National Urban League, Her Agenda, Support 

Warrior Project, the Georgia African-American Chamber of Commerce, and the Association of 

Immigrant Business Owners. 

Video Mentoring 
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SCORE's video mentoring program was created in direct response to our clients' needs. Putting 

our officially-stated value of"Clients Matter" into action, this program was created to connect 

our mentors with entrepreneurs living in remote locations who might not otherwise have access 

to services, or whose busy schedules require flexibility. Using video conferencing technology 

such as Google Hangouts and Skype, video mentoring marries the positive impact of face-to-face 

communication with the convenience of an in-home mentoring session. Our data shows that 

video mentoring clients have the highest level of engagement, rating a 4.4 on a 5-point scale. 

That's compared to a 4.27 rating for our face-to-face mentoring. 

Live Webinars & On-Demand Training 

SCORE national headquarters provides ongoing workshops in both live wcbinar formats and ondemand training housed on the www.score.org website. These educational services are critical to 

our clients, providing information on numerous aspects of starting and growing a business. At 

least once a week on average, SCORE hosts live webinars in conjunction with SCORE 

volunteers, sponsors and outside subject matter experts. Designed to complement local 

workshops provided by SCORE chapters, these webinars compensate for areas of the country 

that lack robust workshop programming, and reach entrepreneurs who cannot easily attend a 

local workshop, or who prefer to learn virtually. 

165,425 clients attended these online workshop sessions in FY18. 

Virtual Conferences 

Now in its fourth year, SCORE's Virtual Conference series allows individuals in any geographic 

location to remotely participate in an online educational environment that offers the look and feel 

of an in-person event. These conferences meet the needs of our clients on their own terms, and 

are perfect for entrepreneurs who are short on time. Combining the educational elements of a 

small business conference with the networking and interactive features of a trade show, virtual 

conferences allow participants to listen to keynote speakers, visit virtual booths to download 

materials, meet sponsors and mentors, and ask questions and connect with each other via a livechat feature. Sessions are also recorded and available on demand after the conference, with 

topics including various aspects of starting or growing a small business, including marketing, 

finance technology and human resources. 

The two virtual conferences held in 2018 drew 12,841 attendees, garnering a total of27,030 

workshop views. 96% of conference attendees reported via survey that the experience had 

''helped" them in their business journey. 

The next virtual conference (SCORE's fifth), will be held on May 7 and 8, 2019, in collaboration 

with the SBA, during National Small Business Week. 

VOLUNTEER ONBOARDING AND TRAINING- ASSURING QUALITY 

SCORE volunteers undergo continuing education and training to stay current on industry news 

and trends, and to continually build on their business knowledge and mentoring skills. Lifelong 

learning is one of SCORE's officially stated, institutionally-held values, as well as a practical 
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expectation for our volunteer base. We believe that continuous learning drives continuous 

improvement, which, in turn, drives mentor effectiveness. Volunteer learning takes the form of 

chapter training days and seminars, chapter roundtable forums, webinars, podcasts, courses, 

reading and independent research. 

SLATE Mentoring Methodology 

Each year all SCORE volunteers are required to undergo mandatory online training that 

reaffirms their commitment to SCORE's Mentoring Methodology, represented by the acronym 

SLATE. SLATE stands for: 

• Stop and Suspend Judgment 

• Listen and Learn 

• Assess and Analyze 

• Test Ideas and Teach with Tools 

• Expectation Setting and Encouraging the Dream 

Following this methodology, mentors take the extra time to listen to and understand each 

business's unique needs and challenges, resulting in a transformational relationship, as opposed 

to a merely transactional relationship. 

Code of Ethics 

Conversations between SCORE mentors and their clients are strictly confidential, with all 

mentors signing a Code of Ethics and Conduct that addresses the protection of each client's 

information and business ideas. Each year, all volunteers are also required to read, understand 

and agree to the Code of Ethics through mandatory online training in the CORE Learning 

Management System. 

Volunteer On board and Learning Management System (LMS) 

Starting in 2016, all new volunteers were required to undergo seven mandatory onboarding 

modules that introduce SCORE's mission, vision and values. SCORE's online Learning 

Management System (LMS) houses volunteer training modules, instructional videos and 

continuing education materials. One subset of the LMS is targeted towards strengthening the 

mentoring skills of volunteers, with the ultimate goal of providing stronger service to clients. 

The Mentoring Skills modules are entitled: Powerful Listening and Questioning, Facilitation 

Skills, Respecting Diversity, Understanding Generational Divides, Understanding 

Communication Styles, Empathy in Practice and Tools for Connecting with Clients. 

METRICS AND MEASUREMENT 

Throughout SCORE's 53 years of operations, our central guiding principle of client satisfaction 

has remained unchanged, and SCORE measures that satisfaction through data-driven, 

technological measures that focus on service (outputs), as well as quality and impact (outcomes). 

At the foundation are three key goals and programs: service quality improvement, client 
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relationship management and economic impact measurement. In using this data to measure the 

quality of our services, SCORE makes smart decisions and grows in the right direction. 

Measuring Client Satisfaction 

SCORE continues to shift from defining itself as a "volunteer service organization" to a 

"business organization led by volunteers." In managing chapter operations like a business, 

SCORE focuses on quality service metrics, including client engagement and Net Promoter 

Scores (NPS). NPS measures client satisfaction based on the quality of the client-mentor 

relationship, and willingness to recommend SCORE. The results are used to identify and 

promote best mentoring practices. 

The SCORE national average of Net Promoter Scores are strong, at 85.49. The vast majority 

(86%) of clients are likely to recommend SCORE services to others. 77% of clients said that 

SCORE helped them. 

Client engagement showed a significant increase in 2018 after 

three years of stationary levels 

Engagement increased as a greater number of Clients indicated that SCORE is important to their success ( +4)1 SCORE is a 

name they can trust ( +4)1 they would recommend SCORE to friends ( +3). and SCORE is truly Client·oriented ( +3) 

Engagement by Year 

201'/ 2018 

SCORE SCORE SCORE SCORE 

Overall Overall Overall 0\~rall 

Measure .2014 20J.5 2016 2017 

N-slze 15·703 15.375 18~583 2,5,!l? 

'' Client engagement 4·Q2 4·09 4·"9 4·09 

\\'illingness to return 81% 83% 8:2% 82% 

to SCORE 

Likelihood to 82% 84% Ss% ss% 

reconunend SCORE 

Champions 64% 66% 66% 6s% 

Xabonal'Warkshop Clients refrrs to CfienN that attended at least one onlinew<>rbhcp or webinar but did r..ot r~t't mm!oring. 

Chapter Performance Data 

SCORE's intranet, called CORE, helps SCORE to run its business activities more effectively and 

efficiently by centralizing and simplifying administrative tasks, so that chapters are able to 

devote more time and focus to serving clients and providing educational services. 
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A variety of management data and current metrics are collected and made available to chapters 

and individual volunteers in the Performance Data section of CORE, so that they can accurately 

understand their performance, make better-informed decisions and serve clients more effectively. 

This reporting begins at the national level, and narrows down to both the chapter level and 

individual volunteer level. 

Specific reports include: 

• Dashboard Report: Allows volunteers to evaluate the performance metrics and client 

satisfaction rates of their chapters and districts according to the number of unique clients, 

historic session and workshop data, client return rates and volunteer demographics and 

certifications. 

• Client Impact Survey: SCORE's annual measure of customer satisfaction, with data 

sortable according to individual district, chapter and state. 

• NPS Scores: Volunteers can access their own personal, up-to-date NPS scores, which 

measure client satisfaction, while Chapter Chairs can access NPS scores for their chapter 

members. 

• Volunteer Engagement Survey: Measures volunteer engagement and satisfaction, both 

across SCORE nationwide, and at the local chapter level. 

• Local workshop reporting: Measures attendance and attendee satisfaction, including a 

national ranking in comparison to other SCORE chapters. 

• Management Information System Reports: Provide up-to-date information on total 

services (both mentoring and workshops). 

THE POWER OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION 

SCORE believes in the importance, value and power of diversity- diversity of people and 

diversity of thought. The diversity of race, gender, age, ethnicity, geography, and experience is 

important and valuable in SCORE. Accordingly, SCORE is focused on achieving diversity 

within our volunteer corps, staff, board and clients. 

Not only is this the right thing to do, but it is also in accordance with national trends. Across the 

U.S., the number of women-owned businesses is growing at a rate five-times faster than the 

national average, and there was a 45% increase in woman-owned businesses from 2007-2016. 1 

There has been a 38% increase in minority owned firms from 2007-2012,2 and today, 79% 

percent of new women-owned businesses are started by women of color.3 

Diversity and SCORE Clients 

SCORE is committed to serving all clients who dream of starting or growing a business, and our 

data shows that our clients represent the demographics of the general U.S. population (with the 

exception of the Hispanic market, where there is room for improvement.) 

1 http://www. womenable.comlcontentluserfiles/20 16 _State_ of_ Women-Owned_ Businesses_ Summary_ Tables. pdf 2 https:/lw>vw.sba.govlsites/default/files/SBO_Facts_MOB.pdf 

3 http://www. womenable.com/contcntluserfiles/20 16 _State_ of_ Women-Owned_ Businesses_ Summary_ Tablcs.pdf 
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Within SCORE's FYI8 client population, 61% were women; 36% were minorities; II% were 

veterans; and 10% were people with a self-identified disability. 

Targeted digital and social media campaigns, as well as public relations initiatives, have focused 

on recruiting more diverse clients to make use of SCORE services. SCORE's national marketing 

strategy has a three-pronged approach of building brand awareness, generating leads to recruit 

new clients and volunteers, and supporting marketing initiatives in the field. SCORE builds 

awareness of its services through earned and organic media outreach, public service 

announcements, and online marketing, including search engine optimization and social media. 

By meeting our audiences in these digital spaces, SCORE remains top of mind and connected 

with current and prospective clients and volunteers. 

FY18 media coverage of SCORE shows a potential audience exposure of 14,183,675,133, with 

an average of 1,442 media mentions of SCORE per month. Publications include everything from 

local newspapers to national business media such as Forbes, Entrepreneur and USA Today. 

SCORE also connects with current and prospective entrepreneurs across several social media 

channels, with more than I 00,000 followers combined across Facebook ( 4.491 million 

impressions in FYI 8), Twitter (1 .406 million impressions in FY 18), Linked In, YouTube 

(545,453 views in FY 18) and lnstagram. A social media audit by a nonprofit consulting firm 

demonstrated that SCORE's Facebook engagement rate is 1,333% above the nonprofit 

benchmark. Our Twitter engagement rate is 2,429% above the nonprofit industry benchmark, 

and our lnstagram engagement rate is 207% above the nonprofit industry benchmark. These 

numbers show that we are effectively meeting and interacting with our clients on social media. 

Diversity and SCORE Volunteers 

Recruitment and retention of a diverse volunteer corps is key to SCORE's future success. 

SCORE onboard 3,243 new volunteers in FY18, 12.8% of whom are former clients. 

While our data shows that SCORE clients report equal measures of satisfaction regardless of 

their mentor's race or gender, SCORE is nonetheless committed to growing our diverse 

volunteer base and reinforcing our culture ofinclusivity. We have grown from 22.33% women 

and minority volunteers in 2012 to 30.80% in 2018. 

This growth in the diversity of our volunteer corps is the direct result of focused actions 

undertaken over the past few years. In 2015, the National Women's Steering Committee was 

formed by a group of SCORE volunteer leaders whose goal is to help recruit and retain women 

as mentors and leaders in the organization and assist chapters with educational events serving 

women entrepreneurs, including roundtables, networking forums and business conferences. 

In 2017, a National Inclusion Task Force was formed to drive strategic cultural change 

throughout SCORE. Beth Shapiro was named National Volunteer Vice President, Diversity and 

Inclusion. SCORE CEO Ken Yancey officially announced SCORE's Culture oflnclusion at the 

annual National Leadership Conference, and by year's end, online inclusivity training had been 

launched for volunteers, which is now a mandatory annual requirement. 
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Formal, in-person inclusivity training was completed by all field leaders in 2018. The same year, 

field diversity and inclusion ambassadors were tasked with the mission of spreading diversity 

information among the volunteer corps. The work continues through various webinars and 

newsletters, which highlight the diversity-related successes of chapters and clients. 

SCORE has also solidified partnerships with key organizations to help expand our reach into 

underservcd and minority markets, including: Walker's Legacy, ICCC, US Black Chambers, 

and Black Enterprise. 

We have also increased our focus on Spanish-language educational content, and formed strategic 

partnerships with like-minded organizations who want to help the Hispanic business owners and 

entrepreneurs succeed. Examples include partnerships with the Hispanic Chambers at the 

national and local levels. 

Most recently, SCORE has run a social media ad campaign targeting 11 cities of varying size 

across the U.S., and specifically aimed at recruiting diverse volunteers. To date, the campaign 

has generated 1.08 million impressions, and 17,300 link clicks, with chapters each reporting a 

strong uptick in volunteer applications. 

VISION 2025: EMPOWERING SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS IN THE FUTURE 

Within an ever-changing business and economic landscape, SCORE must prepare for and ensure 

organizational relevancy for the next 50 years. It is not enough for SCORE to try to manage 

change; rather, we must embrace change and become change proficient. No matter how much the 

landscape changes, SCORE's ability to provide business advice and mentoring to entrepreneurs 

and small business owners will remain relevant, as validated by our data. 

SCORE has developed an official vision for the organization in the year 2025, which guides 

decisions and organization development. This vision consists of data-driven conclusions, sourced 

from numerous macro-environmental as well as SCORE-specific sources, which have been 

tested and verified throughout the process. 

Vision 2025 has seven elements, which are both directional and aspirational: 

• CLIENT FOCUS: Client satisfaction, client success and the growth of the small business 

community arc the overarching criteria of our success. 

• ACCESSIBLE: The skills and specialties of our nationwide network of fully certified 

mentors can be easily and readily accessed. 

• BEST-IN-CLASS: Our resources, either our own or our partners', settle for nothing less 

than excellence, so that our clients will receive the same incredible experience 

independent of their location, business type or service offered. 

• RELEVANT: We will stay aware of(and respond to) changes in the small business 

environment. 

• COST EFFECTIVE: SCORE will apply the most practical and current business 

methodologies in the most cost effective way possible to best serve our clients. 
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• VALUES-BASED: We will ensure quality of the client experience and will continually 

demonstrate integrity, rigor and the courage to change. 

• GROWTH-ORIENTED: We will drive growth in the number and type of clients served, 

in the breadth of products and services provided and in the capabilities of our 

organization. 

To effectively deliver on the Vision for SCORE in 2025, SCORE, as an organization, must 

continue its ongoing cultural transformation by operating with a "One SCORE" mindset, in 

which headquarters, the chapters, volunteers and the SCORE Foundation work together to 

achieve the goals of an increased focus on clients, accountability and growth. This 

transformation must be continually and consistently driven at all levels of the organization. 

To this end, SCORE is currently moving to a more centralized operating model in which support 

functions such as accounting and technology are executed and coordinated at the headquarters 

level, while direct client services and support are delivered at the field level through our 

nationwide network of chapters and volunteers. This will help to ensure consistency, efficiency 

and an ever increasing level of client engagement and satisfaction with our services, and also 

allow volunteers to focus less on administrative tasks, and more on mentoring. 

Examples of this centralization include the chapter website standardization, the social media 

program and the centralized accounting program. 

Chapter Website Standardization 

SCORE's individual chapter websites are designed on a centralized template, with an aesthetic 

that complements the national website and strengthens brand consistency, while allowing for 

customization at the local level. This customization is accomplished via editable content bands, 

built-in social media sharing icons, a blog, and email newsletter sign up functions. 

Enhanced functionality includes SEO, mobile optimization, and search capabilities that direct 

clients and volunteers toward the resources they need. A Constant Contact workshop Application 

Programming Interface provides a direct import of chapter workshop data to both the chapter 

website and the national website, expanding their reach and attracting more clients. The chapter 

websites are uniquely connected to the national website at score.org, allowing chapters to 

automatically share national online workshops and resources if they so choose, and enabling 

easier site maintenance. 

Chapter Social Media Pilot 

Originally tested as a pilot program with 10 chapters in 2016, SCORE's chapter social media 

program has now grown to include 230 chapters. The program centralizes social media posting 

and engagement services through the services of a third-party vendor, enhancing and integrating 

the chapters' digital marketing efforts with an improved online presence and increased brand 

consistency. By improving local awareness of SCORE, the program targets each chapter's main 

goals of recruiting more clients, recruiting more volunteers, and driving stronger local workshop 

attendance. 
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Data shows that this program achieves our goal of meeting potential clients and volunteers where 

they are. In FYI8, chapters involved in the social media program saw an 8.9% increase in 

services, compared to non-pilot chapters, which saw a 2.93% increase in services. Total 

engagement for participating chapters increased by 30% over the previous year. 

Centralized Accounting 

Today, one of SCORE's main initiatives is to centralize all accounting and finance systems 

nationwide. Centralizing accounting functions will reduce the burden on SCORE chapter chairs 

and treasurers moving forward, related to reporting requirements and bookkeeping and clerical 

duties, while chapters maintain control over how, when, and where they spend and raise their 

monies. 

The development of uniform policy and procedures for chapter treasury operations provides 

consistent on boarding and training of treasurers, reduces risk for the overall organization, 

improves insights into financials of the organization to better support accounting and 

fund raising. 

SCORE 2019 Appropriations Request 

SCORE must finance its future and raise the dollars required to deliver on Vision 2025. To serve 

our future clients and meet the needs of our future partners, volunteers and staff, incremental 

dollars will be required to invest in innovation, technology, marketing, relationship development, 

product/service delivery and infrastructure. To be successful and remain relevant in the future, 

SCORE must not only increase connectivity among clients, volunteers, headquarters and partners 

but also improve operational efficiency, consistency and effectiveness. This will require 

increased process capability and capacity supported and enabled by information technology. 

Based on the impact demonstrated above, SCORE is requesting a $13.5 million appropriation in 

Fiscal Year 2020. This represents a $2 million increase in funding as compared to the projected 

Fiscal Year 2019 appropriation. SCORE will use these funds to continue the implementation of 

our Futures 2025 initiative, which will ensure SCORE's future relevancy, change proficiency 

and positive impact on clients. 

As detailed above, the FY19 results ofthe implementation of SCORE's Future 2025 initiative 

include significant improvements in client engagement, growth in client services, improvements 

in service quality, improvements in diversity and inclusivity, and increased client impact. 

Based on these results, we estimate that appropriated FY20 funds will be used to serve and 

support our clients in the following ways: 

Client Services: 

• Develop new chapters/branches in specific markets of opportunity including major 

metropolitan areas, rural states/communities, inner cities and other underserved areas. 
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• Continue the development and implementation of SCORE's Client Road Map based on 

client focus group feedback regarding expectations, new products, services and delivery 

channels. 

• Additional funding for special projects at the chapter level including women's 

workshops, diversity and inclusion initiatives and outreach to underserved markets. 

Marketing and Communications: 

• Use social and other forms of digital media to reach and attract new clients and 

volunteers. Continue centralized digital marketing (website and social media 

management) for all chapters. 

• Develop and organize content and resources to allow simple and instant access for clients 

and volunteers. Develop targeted web-based centers for specific industries, business 

disciplines and market segments (i.e. startups, non-employer firms, etc.) 

• Support SCORE chapters with their goal of becoming an integral part of the economic 

development fabric of the communities they serve. Develop and implement local chapter 

marketing initiatives, including referral and word-of-mouth campaigns. 

• Use referral partner networks to attract clients and volunteers at all levels of the 

organization. Form joint marketing initiatives with national and local partners. 

Technology and Website: 

• Finalize development and roll out "SCORE Engage," a Salesforce CRM system that will 

manage SCORE's client experience, volunteer experience, volunteer management, 

association management and stakeholder reporting. 

• Properly protect all client, volunteer and other data that is used, stored or managed by 

SCORE. Implement a data security audit and plan to insure all client and volunteer data is 

as well- protected based on industry standards. 

Volunteer Education: 

• Support SCORE's Volunteer National Leadership Conference and seven regional 

leadership meetings. 

Administration: 

• Improve SCORE's ability to appropriately manage all forms of funding in a manner 

consistent with all applicable rules, policies and regulations. This includes software 

licensing fees for the centralized chapter level accounting system. 

• Customization, integration, implementation of centralized chapter level accounting 

system to reduce chapter administrative burden and lessen financial risk related to cash 

control. 

Payroll and Fringe: 
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• Anticipating two staff additions to the finance/accounting department, and one additional 

technology staff member. 

Governance: 

• Continue to provide appropriate oversight of SCORE in a manner consistent with all 

applicable rules, policies and regulations. 

SCORE is scalable, with a relatively small investment, and can provide even greater value to the 

federal taxpayer, and to our country's economy. All appropriated funds would be maximized to 

serve and support our clients by growing our volunteer corps, expanding our reach, and creating 

even greater economic impact in communities across the country. SCORE exists to help 

entrepreneurs achieve their dream of success, and to strengthen the economy of this great nation. 

We appreciate the support of this committee, as well as your personal support of SCORE. 

I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have, and to provide any additional 

documentation as requested. Thank you, again, for this opportunity to testify. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Kenneth Yancey 

CEO 

SCORE Association 
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"Supporting America's Startups: Review of SBA Entrepreneurial Development Programs." 

By Cherylynn Sagester, MM, Director Old Dominion University Veterans Business Outreach Center an SBA Resource. 

It is the opinion of this author, there is no better time to be a startup entrepreneur in the U.S. than at this moment The 

financial conditions are certainly favorable, as well as the economic outlook for the future; not to mention the traditional 

negative and or skeptical mind set regarding entrepreneurship is a thing of the past Entrepreneurship is currently thought 

of not only in a positive light, but is considered the 'thing to do', especially if you are a millennia! or a veteran, and if that is 

the case, it is thought of as the way to achieve autonomy, success and independent wealth. 

Furthermore, research conducted after each major war since post-WWII tells us veteran entrepreneurship significantly 

increases after each major war, and the Iraq and or Afghanistan war is no different. Research has also shown veterans 

make the best entrepreneurs, as they acquire skills and character that are conducive to what is required for entrepreneurial 

success. An example of these character traits are as follows: excellent work ethic, sound understanding of the need for a 

plan and the necessity to follow the plan, veterans are risk-adverse, and failure is NOT an option, among other traits. In 

addition, these new veterans are the most educated and technologically trained service members than any before them. 

When considering this, combined with the previously mentioned character traits gained by military service, you have a sector 

of the population that is prime for taking on entrepreneurship and thereby, control over their future. 

On the other hand, Startups have many challenges, as any form of entrepreneurship does. In particular, the Startup is 

immediately challenged when it comes to startup capital. A Startup is like any small business, funding is the biggest 

obstacle to confront; along with lack of experience or knowledge as an entrepreneur. With that said, the following statistics 

provide validity to what is observed in the startup and entrepreneurial community: Approximately 50% of small businesses 

fail in the first 4 years, with the leading cause being incompetence and lack of managerial experience at 30% and 82% of 

businesses fail due to cash flow deficiency. When considering these assumptions, please see the Startup rankings by 

state listed below ... 

Startup Activity and Rankings 

• Among the twenty-five largest states, the five states with the highest startup activity in the 2017 Index were California, 

Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Colorado. Seventeen out of the twenty-five largest states had higher levels of startup activity 

in 2017 compared to last year. 

• In the twenty-five smallest states, the five states with the highest startup activity in the 2017 Index were Nevada, 

Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Eleven smaller states had higher Startup Activity Index measures this year. 

• Among the twenty-five largest states, the four that experienced the biggest increase in ranks in 2017 were 

Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington, and Minnesota. The three that experienced the biggest negative shifts in rank in 

2017 compared to 2016 were Louisiana, Maryland, and Virginia. (2017 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity Ewing, Marion 

Kauffman Foundation). Per the aforementioned study, Startup activity in a region in the U.S. is driven by the rate of new 

entrepreneurs joining the economy in a given month, the number of new entrepreneurs entering the market that are driven 

primarily by 'opportunity vs necessity', and the number of Startups in a region that are new employer businesses. 
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SBA Entrepreneurial Development Programs 

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Veterans Business Development's (OVBD) premier 

entrepreneurial development program is, the Veteran Business Outreach Centers located throughout the U.S., with each 

Center responsible for a geographic Region that covers multiple states. For example. the Center this author oversees as 

Director of Region Ill (Virginia and West Virginia), is the Old Dominion University Veterans Business Outreach Center 

(VBOC) located at Old Dominion University, as a part of the university's Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 

(liE), 4111 Monarch Way, Suite 106, Norfolk, VA 23508. With this being said, the SBA has 22 active centers across the 

nation as a result of funds designated by Congress to the SBA in support and strong understanding of the importance of 

entrepreneurship, and or small businesses to our national economy. This Center is located 5.2 miles from Naval Station 

Norfolk, the largest Naval Base in the world, who transitions out approximately 10,000 Sailor's each year for the last 6 

years and is expected to continue to do so going forward, as the post war downsizing of our troops continue. These 

numbers do not include any other branch of service in the Hampton Roads region, and as record shows there are many 

installations in the region who transition out thousands of veterans in the Hampton Roads area and the state of Virginia 

each year. 

Transition Assistance and working to support the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) in each of our regions is 

paramount to the main requirement for VBOC's. This support includes organizing, facilitating and instructing the nationally 

known 2 day introduction to entrepreneurship program. Boots to Business (B2B). whose training is conducted on military 

installation's throughout areas of regional responsibility. The secondary requirement is to offer 'other' business and or 

entrepreneurial trainings and outreach. Lastly, and vitally important, is the one-on-one business advising provided to our 

startups and small business owners in all phases of the business cycle, as well as those whom qualify and are positioned 

for government contracting within the military and or DoD sectors. VBOC instructors and advisor's, along with their local 

and regional community resource partners are 'boots on the ground' support for entrepreneurial clients. However, the 

SBA, Office of Veterans Business Development (OVBD), and our other SBA resource partners such as: SBA District 

Offices, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), SCORE, Small Business Development Center's (SBDC), Women's 

Business Center (WBC), Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) and others make up the resource network 

that is KEY to the support needed to overcome the obstacles to success discussed in the previous section; access to 

capital and managerial experience and or know~ how to start and or grow a business. 

To summarize, startup's and entrepreneurs must self-fund and or in military terms, 'bootstrap' their startup costs through 

their savings. friends and family investments, and if they are lucky they can access some non~ traditional funding; such as 

online fonms offunding like StreetShares (e-bay meets shark tank). crowdfunding (Kick-starter, Go Fund Me and others). 

Due to the explosive and thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that is currently prevalent throughout the nation, startups and 

entrepreneur's also have a new option which consists of 'pitching' their business idea and or concept to organizations and 

or institutions that are holding startup 'Pitch Competition's' with often hefty prize monies going to the winner and runnerup. These forms of outside-the-box funding is often times the difference between a small startup getting off the ground or 

not, because traditional forms of capital are not usually a viable option for these new entrepreneurs. These new forms of 

startup capital are taking place all over our cities. regions. states and the country as a whole, and when combined with 

experienced business advisors (research says startups who have access to business advisors, mentors etc. are 26.3% 

more likely to succeed), like those at the SBA, VBOC's and other SBA resource development programs mentioned, 

explains why we are starting and growing more small businesses in the U.S. than ever before. 
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Exhibit 1: 

Old Dominion University Veterans Business Outreach Center Metrics: 

U,S, SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 

---·---

VBOC 

VETERANS ---·--- BUSINESS OUTREACH CENTERS 

Old Dominion University Veterans Business Outreach Center 

February 25, 2019 

2ea. Business Counselors, lea. Administrative Assistant 

Over 1900 Active Business Clients (Virginia, W. Virginia, 

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania) 

Over 175 Veteran-Owned Business Start-ups in past 5 years 

Over 1,500 Jobs Created 

Over $350M in Revenue 

Over $10M in Capital Investment 
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Question for Ms. Corinne Hodges 

CEO of the Association ofWomen's Business Centers 

Ms. HodgesThank you for your work serving as a resource to women-owned 

small businesses. 

Federal contracting can help level the playing field for 

traditionally underrepresented small business owners, like those 

owned by women. Currently, the SBA has set a governmentwide goal of 5% for women-owned small business contracts. 

Unfortunately, these set-asides are not always equitably 

distributed among the wide array of federal contract. 

I have heard from business owners in my district that federal 

construction proposals very rarely have set-asides for womenowned small businesses. This is especially notable because 

women-owned small businesses are underrepresented in this 

industry. 

Have you heard similar concerns from your members about 

federal agencies failing to meet their set-aside goals for womenowned small businesses? 

Thank you again for the opportunity to share with the 

Committee about the critical role of Women's Business Centers. 

Federal contracting, as you point out, is an important market for 

women-owned businesses. We regularly hear about the need for 
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more training and counseling around procurement, and, yes, at 

times concerns about the lack of utility of the WOSB program. 

While our centers are not close trackers of the 5% goal, we 

would be happy to work with the Committee to explore how 

improved awareness of the program- for contracting officers 

and women business owners- might yield better results. 

How can Congress better support SBA's role in promoting 

women-owned and other underrepresented businesses in the 

federal contracting process? 

There are many good curricula among our members around 

WOSBs and federal contracting. We, however, lack the 

resources to share best practices to maximize impact across all 

150+ locations nationwide. We would urge the Committee to 

improve the program through re-authorization and accreditation 

to allow better transmission of best practices around 

procurement. 

Individual centers, as well, need additional funding to build out 

contracting programs and expertise. We know that the method of 

education (WBCs) works, we need the resources to make it 

happen. We would gladly work with the Committee and the 

appropriators on identifYing pilot opportunities in the WOSB 

contracting space. 
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Question for Ms. Cherylynn Sagester 

Director of Veterans Business Outreach Center 

Norfolk, VA 

Ms. Sagester: 

We know that veterans acquire a variety of skills while serving 

their country-from leadership skills to crisis management and 

adaptability-but lack many of the specific skills to start their 

own small business, like accounting and market development. 

Yes. that is true. Therefore. the VBOC and our services are so important to the veteran's success as an 

entrepreneur. As a VBOC client, our veterans and military spouses are trained and counseled on business 

startup processes; such as: industry and market analysis. proper economic and business model for the 

type of business they want to open, required ftlllding and resources. as well as. 'back office' procedures, 

operations. building their vendor and customer base and many other requirements. 

Training servicemembers transitioning into civilian life on 

entrepreneurship helps them to leverage these many skills to 

SUCCeed in Starting their OWn busineSS. Yes. it does and these military acquired 

skills and characteristics also are what is responsible fix their tenacity and determination to succeed and 

to not give up or retreat; making success and victory the only path forward in their minds; whereas, their 

civilian counterpm1s who did NOT serve in the military have a tendency to not only give up more easily, 

but they also do NOT have access to the entrepreneurial training, counseling, rnentoring and additional 

support offered; that no doubt, helps to make servicemembers transition to civilian life and 

entrepreneurship much more likely to be successful. 

Last Congress, I introduced the Veteran Entrepreneurship 

Training Act, which would codifY the widely successful Boots to 

Business Program operated by the SBA which coordinates this 

training. As a VBOC Director and serial veteran entrepreneur. l thank you for this introduction and 

support. of one oft he most successful programs associated with military transition. Since Boots to 

Business (B2B) was launched as a Pilot in January 2013. my team and I have been facilitating, instructing 

and deJh,ering this program for the SBA ·,Region lll made up of Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania 

and Delaware. However. May l, 2018 the SBA reorganized the Regions and Region Ill is now made up 

of Virginia and West Virginia. During this tirneframe of6 years. the B2B program has continued to grow 

and improve. As for our Center. we have seen. not only the number of attendees grow for the 

entrepreneurial workshops. but also the number of workshops deliver in each of the SBA 's I 0 regions. 

for example: our Center, ODUVBOC conducted 63 2-day B2B workshops in our region in 

20 l7and last year, we conducted 67 2-day 82!3 workshops: and are on course to deliver 

approximate 70 or more for 2019. This increase is Jue to the number of military transitioning, but it also 

has to do with the success of the training and the follow up training and counseling provided to the 
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