Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore (WEB)
Julie Reeder
28 E. Ostend St.
Baltimore, Md. 21230
(410) 727-4921

Job training offers a solid route to self-reliance, but too often, job-training programs for unemployed people overlook a simple but brutal reality, says Julie Reeder, community organizer with WEB, the Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore: It makes no sense to train people for jobs if no jobs are available.

WEB gives Baltimore women the tools they need to create their own jobs, by training them to start and run their own small businesses. Then it backs them up with loan money and a focused array of programs to support its women entrepreneurs as they plan and start their small businesses and get them off the ground.

This holistic approach links several separate but important approaches that add up to success. First, every woman in the program goes through a comprehensive, full-time business-skills training program that lasts three months. Then, graduates have access to a loan fund to finance new businesses. They receive resource-sharing, mentoring and volunteer business consultation from local experts. In addition, WEB organizes its community to promote and support WEB businesses among the entrepreneurs' own neighbors.

This young program, with an efficient staff of six full-time employees plus part-timers and interns, operates on a lean budget of $300,000 a year. Since starting its first training class in 1992, WEB has built an enviable track record. Now running at full speed with 90 graduates a year completing the program, it has reached 250 potential entrepreneurs, more than 70 percent of whom are operating businesses. While many WEB graduates are still in the stage of running part-time operations out of their homes, quite a few -- including a baker, a caterer, and arts-and-crafts businesses -- have moved into retail stores; and one success story, a pedicab fleet that provides tourist transportation around the city's booming Inner Harbor area, is providing jobs for up to 50 formerly unemployed Baltimoreans.

Of the nearly two hundred women who have graduated from the WEB program, 70 percent have started their businesses and 96 percent of those businesses are still in operation today.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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