Advocacy Works

Entrepreneurship is the single most important vehicle for supporting economic and community development, and improving public health; but currently, entrepreneurs have minimal voice or influence in public policy decisions that effect their ability to start a business and create jobs.

Measuring Impact

Disadvantaged entrepreneurs exist in every community. Investing public dollars in entrepreneurial skills training is the best way to create economic mobility for communities that experience poverty and marginalization.

This calculator estimates the number of disadvantaged entrepreneurs by county, and models the potential economic impact of adult and dislocated workforce training programs.

To create these estimate, we combine data from three source:

This calculator assumes an economic impact of $25,000 per job created and identifies the investment needed to serve all disadvantaged entrepreneurs in both the selected state and county.

Just helping 50 in a community has the potential to create a $5,000,000 economic impact on a $300k training investment.

“Our community is a better place because of the work of Make Startups”
— Jay Forrester, Sr. EVP & Division President, South State Bank

Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act (WIOA)

Presentations

National Governors Association presentation covers program outcomes and identifies how states can support training programs for economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

Included is a progression of presentations that have been developed as part of a series that began in 2019 to educate policy makers, administrators, community and economic developers, capital partners, and Entrepreneur Support Organizations of the opportunities within workforce development and an operational approach for investing in an entrepreneurial workforce.

  1. Investing in an Entrepreneurial Workforce: This is an overview of the opportunity within the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) that identifies the specific legislative authorization and intent.

  2. Investing in Entrepreneur Ecosystem Credentials: This second presentation for community stakeholders builds upon the legislative overview in previous presentations to identify an operational strategy to meet requirements to leverage WIOA funding in communities.

  3. Entrepreneur Ecosystem Accreditation Next Steps: This presentation is designed to help communities interested in pursuing entrepreneurial workforce development strategies understand program design metrics and immediate next steps required to launch an entrepreneurial skills training pilot program in their community or state.

Make Startups Advocacy