business aid

Young Entrepreneurs Society, Inc.

Location:
Orange, MA

Helping teens and young adults in rural Western Massachusetts USA find and follow their own paths to prosperity through entrepreneurship, job readiness and financial education since 1998.

Served over 1,000 young people since inception in Massachusetts, Iowa, Alaska and Canada. Findings from over 500 BizVenture! pre- and post-program evaluations completed to date show that:

100% of our students more than doubled their overall business knowledge
85% identified a special talent they can use to earn a living
91% feel they know enough to start their own business and make a profit
95% plan to go on for more education after high-school
15% are operating a business
60% are holding a job
90% remained in or completed high school
55% performed voluntary community service

Westside Youth Technical Entrepreneur Center

Location:
Chicago, IL

Westside Youth Technical Entrepreneur Center (WYTEC) is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization, located in Chicago’s West Garfield Park community since 1999 and was incorporated in 2001. WYTEC serves as a bridge from the business sector to the youth in the community to let them know that they have choices other than drugs, gangs, and violence by providing quality after school programs. Our mission is to teach entrepreneurship, technology, and life skills that will further community and economic progress within our community and abroad.

WYTEC has partnered with the Boston, MA Museum of Science to create an Intel Computer Clubhouse in 2005 and we are one of over 100 Intel Computer Clubhouses worldwide. We are also a member of the Community Technology Centers Network (CTC Net) which provides computer access and other digital media tools to community residents via open access and computer training classes.

MicroMentor

Location:
Portland, OR

MicroMentor is a free online service that connects small business owners with business mentors. MicroMentor puts experience to work by offering business professionals meaningful volunteer opportunities and by offering entrepreneurs one-on-one advice to help build successful businesses. Our mission is to help small businesses grow faster, generate more revenue, and employ more people. We make it easy to be a mentor, find a mentor, and build a business.

A free online service, we provide entrepreneurs with proven opportunities to grow their businesses and increase revenues by participating in a mentoring relationship.
Entrepreneurs, particularly those with low-incomes and limited access to business resources, realize significant economic benefits from mentoring services.
Mentors are provided with meaningful opportunities to “give back” by sharing their experience and expertise.
We primarily connect microentrepreneurs, owners of businesses that employ five people or less, to volunteer mentors who have successfully navigated business ownership or management.
MicroMentor is dedicated to the proposition that the success of low-income microentrepreneurs is crucial to the economic and social well being of our communities.
For more information, download MicroMentor’s Program Overview or contact us at info@micromentor.org.
MicroMentor is an initiative of Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps is a non-profit, humanitarian agency that implements community-led and market-driven programs in over 35 developing countries.

Community Partners

Location:
Los Angeles, CA

At Community Partners, we believe in the ability of social innovators and entrepreneurs to bring positive change to their communities.

Social innovators and entrepreneurs are individuals who identify solutions to community needs and then actively respond. For example: they are advocates who want to educate immigrant workers on their rights; funders who want to increase their grantees’ effectiveness; government officials who want to bridge the digital divide; business leaders who want to see one million trees planted in LA; teachers who want to see their students eat healthy, sustainable food; and actors who want to bring theater to the inner city.

At Community Partners, we provide social innovators and entrepreneurs like these the support and infrastructure needed to advance their ideas into action.

For emerging leaders of civic and community projects, we handle finance, HR, and legal needs; help them develop their idea into a funded project; connect them with their peers and leaders in the community; and equip them with the tools and training to grow an effective, sustainable project.

For experienced social innovators and networks of established stakeholder groups, we provide the knowledge and means to get new ideas and coalitions off the ground in a matter of weeks.

For funders, we provide skilled management of program offices, peer convenings, regranting, and capacity-building programs that strengthen their impact in the community.

What we provide enables social innovators and entrepreneurs to do what they do best - make change happen. Since 1992, we have supported, trained, and invested in more than 500 social innovators and entrepreneurs tackling every imaginable social issue. They have come from the core of our vibrant communities and from every station of civic life: government, foundations, business, the social sector, and neighborhoods everywhere.

Transmission Project