SHE-DFW ENTREPRENEUR TRAINING

our free program helps you start and grow your business

Our Program

SHE DFW’s free services are available across DFW to women from low income neighborhoods. SHE DFW offers a range of tailored business services including networking events, training, and mentorship. SHE DFW also offers access to business services–including workshops, connections to capital, pro-bono legal assistance, and navigating resources.

“It’s hard to break the glass ceiling when you are barely able to make ends meet.”

The challenges facing women entrepreneurs and how SHE DFW seeks to support women in navigating these obstacles and barriers include accessing funds, reaching customers, hiring ability and practices, and a lack of mentors and business advisors. Our focus fall into 4 categories: funding, mentorship and networking, skill development, and information and infrastructure. These barriers lay the foundation for SHE DFW’s programs, which include: facilitate access to affordable loans, connect women with credit-building services, offer financial training and education, create a structured mentorship program, and create programs that focus on leadership and management skills.

As part of Mission/Bridges continued commitment to supporting local solutions to complex challenges in disadvantaged communities, we will work with a number of organizations that support women in their entrepreneurial endeavors. Key investments in programs like SHEDFW can have a catalytic impact for low-income women and families in communities across the country.

SHEDFW Program Aims To Create 900 Women Entrepreneurs From Low-Income Neighborhoods. You can’t break the glass ceiling when you’re struggling to make ends meet. How do you take the recipe that your grandmother gave you that everybody in the neighborhood loves, and figure out how to sell that on Etsy

That critical path from idea to success is where SHEDFW is hoping to take 900 women from underserved communities in the next three years. We will offer free training and business services–including loan negotiation workshops, connections to capital, pro-bono legal assistance, and navigating government resources–for aspiring entrepreneurs.

The program is designed to help DFW Housing Authority residents interested in launching their own businesses. SHEDFW is also partnering with Woodforest National Bank, which will educate aspiring entrepreneurs on accessing capital and Mission/Bridges will offer intensive classes on entrepreneurship to prepare women for success in the marketplace.

These women typically aren’t in a positon of seeking startup funding because they are struggling to make ends meet. These women have terrific ideas, are really creative, (and) could be the next great entrepreneur, but are really struggling with how to break into business. . . . SHEDFW will be a platform to address those issues head-on.

There are many programs across the country focused on providing resources for women entrepreneurs, but we hope SHEDFW will be a model for other initiatives around the world. “It is incredibly important to make sure that these women have an opportunity to monetize their ideas and to become part of lifting up the entire economy and diversify the economy.

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