Center for Women and Enterprise

Education: since its founding in 1995, the Center for Women & Enterprise has trained 60,600 aspiring small business owners who have created 57,500 jobs and paid $1.6 billion in wages to their employees. We provide comprehensive programs and services for entrepreneurs and business owners in ma, nh, ri, and vt, which address the full continuum of their businesses' lifecycles. Cwe offers onsite, online and workshops in the communities we serve on critically relevant topics including financial literacy, business plan creation, financing options, and visioning, all designed to strengthen Women and veteran owned businesses. In 2023 alone, participation in our programs and events totaled 6,766 and we served 3,017 individuals, providing them with the tools they need to successfully create new income opportunities for themselves and their families, while also boosting the new england economy.

Certification: the Center for Women & Enterprise offers Women business owners the ability to obtain formal status of their diversity through a variety of certifications. Certification allows businesses to bid on contracts as a diverse vendor in both the private and public sector. It is an important tool for expanding the visibility of a company among decision makers in supplier diversity and procurement. Cwe is the regional provider of the Women's business Enterprise national council (wbenc), the premiere private sector certification that gives women-owned businesses an advantage in the corporate bidding arena. We also offer the Women owned small business (wosb-federal) as a secondary certification at no additional cost. This certification is required for women-owned businesses that want to bid on federal contracts in the public sector. In 2023, cwe certified 529 women-owned businesses through the wbenc.