Tory Burch Gives Entrepreneur Works a Boost to Increase Investments in Local Women-Owned Businesses

Tory Burch, founder of the Tory Burch Foundation and a Valley Forge native. (Image via Fortune Live Media)

Entrepreneur Works was recently selected as one of six Community Financial Development Institutions (CDFI) in the country to join a national initiative to invest in women-owned businesses. Elizabeth Street Capital, a partnership between Bank of America and the Tory Burch Foundation, launched the initiative in an effort to revitalize communities and create job growth by strengthening female entrepreneurs.

Bank of America will provide Elizabeth Street Capital with $10 million in capital to be channeled through local CDFIs towards capital investments, mentoring support and networking opportunities within their markets.

The focus on women-owned businesses came from Tory Burch, fashion designer and Valley Forge native who founded the Tory Burch Foundation in 2009. The Foundation has joined a number of business development initiatives, including the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses campaign.

Burch learned through building her own fashion brand that women face unique barriers to starting and growing a business. In a recent interview, Burch stressed that access to capital was the “number one” problem women entrepreneurs faced.

Despite this obstacle, women-owned businesses have grown considerably in the last decade alone. The number of women-owned businesses in Pennsylvania, for example, grew by 45.4 percent between 1997 and 2013, according to “The State of Women-Owned Businesses” report, commissioned by American Express OPEN.

Also in the report: there are 155,200 women-owned businesses in Philadelphia metropolitan area, which ranks ninth in the country. (The statistics from this were extrapolated from 2010 census numbers).

Leveraging Local Experts 

Entrepreneur Works has been mentoring, giving small business loans, and networking business owners since it was founded in 1989. This extra capital will allow Entrepreneur Works to give larger loans.

“The modification we’re making, which is something we were already moving towards, is making loans as large as $50,000,” said Rebecca Gerber, development and communications manager at Entrepreneur Works. “Traditionally, our loans have not gone beyond $25,000, but we’ve been moving in the direction of expanding our loans in general.”

In addition, Elizabeth Street Capital is encouraging their partnering CDFIs to focus on early stage businesses – those with around two years experience – for the purpose of helping them expand. This could mean hiring new staff or making a capital investment in their storefront.

“It’s really job creation opportunity as much as anything,” said Andrew Pepler, corporate responsibility executive for Bank of America, in an interview with CBS.

This is particularly important for women-owned businesses, given that majority do not have paid employees. According to data collected by the Small Business Administration, Pennsylvania’s 553,000 male-owned firms employed 1,822,000 employees as of 2007. By comparison, the state’s 265,000 women-owned businesses employed just 288,000 employees.

“Getting to that next level where you can actually hire employees requires all the things that any business needs, capital and the help in making important business decisions,” Gerber said.

CDFIs in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston, New York and Charlotte will also receive funds. Elizabeth Street Capital intends to expand the program to additional markets over the next two years.