Women of Color Program

The WBENC Women of Color (WOC) Program is cultivating a business ecosystem for women of color through seven program pillars:

• Community Building: WOC is a tight-knit community, sharing resources for accelerating growth, strategizing to overcome problems, and meeting new customers.
• Market Access: WOC identifies and leverages regional network areas that focus on the advancement and development of WOC businesses and connects them to the WOC community.
• Resources: WOC provides support throughout the year with resources in education, support, leadership development, mentorship and provides materials to help strengthen and enhance WOC businesses’ capacity for doing business with corporations.
• Human Capital: WOC empowers and advances women owned businesses by providing education, inspirational speakers, facilitators, consulting, trainings, subject experts, coaches, and more for aspiring WOC leaders. The program also connects women of color entrepreneurs to pipelines of talent and emphasizes the importance of developing their teams as their most valuable asset.
• Innovation: WOC facilitates innovation and growth by building bridges with the next generation of women-led firms and entrepreneurs through partnerships with universities and the WBENC NextGen program.
• Policy: WOC partners with government advocacy organizations including Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) and the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) to promote federal legislative priorities that are necessary for sustained women-owned business success.
• Capital: WOC researches and communicates access to capital programs and other outside resources and opportunities for women entrepreneurs to the network on a regular basis

As an outreach and development program, the WBENC Women of Color program is open to all women business owners, including WBENC-Certified Women’s Business Enterprises and those not yet certified.

If you are a female entrepreneur, but not yet certified by WBENC, attending a Women of Color program event is a great way to get a taste of the network.

We also invite all allies of women of color business owners to participate, including Corporate Members, WBEs or other partners.