Survey hopes to set the record straight when it comes to female veteran business owners

ELIZABETH HOWE SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 - 1:09 PM CONNECTINGVETS.COM

Are you a female veteran business owner in Dallas, Texas? This survey wants to know about your needs — so it can help female veterans everywhere succeed. 

The Veteran Women's Enterprise Center — an organization that helps women veteran-owned businesses (WVOBs) scale, strategize, and succeed — is hosting a survey called "Moments that Matter" in partnership with the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank to examine the entrepreneur journey of WVOBs in Dallas. VWEC hopes the results of the survey will help WVOBs everywhere to be better understood and supported. 

And that's no longer a small population. A 2007 to 2012 Census Bureau survey of business owners found that WVOBs had grown from 4 percent of all veteran-owned businesses to 15.2 percent — nearly 400,000 new businesses. 

"It's not a Dallas thing," said VR Small, the founder and executive director of the VWEC. "It's something that we feel — based on the number of women veterans across our nation who are starting businesses — that this is something that women need across the nation and are looking for. Women veterans don't self-identify. We need to give them a voice."

When Small returned to the Dallas area, she found little to no established support for female veteran entrepreneurs there. 

"We didn't even have a women's business center in the city of Dallas at that time," Small said. "All the programs I reached out to who said they helped veterans proclaimed they didn't have anyone in Dallas who could support me. We wanted to meet their needs and give them a place where they could come and have camaraderie, connect."

Small worked to establish VWEC in the area and is now looking to do more for both Dallas-based and national WVOBs with the "Moments that Matter" survey. 

"The survey is really in-depth. It really digs deep. And we designed it that way because we really want to try to make this a regional and eventually a national tool that not just my organization can use but any organization that wants to know what's going on with women veterans. They can access this tool and use it," Small said. 

The results of the survey will help the general population to understand the unique needs of WVOBs. Eventually, the results will be used to create an annual report on the status of WVOBs, "keeping the volume up and tuned into their ongoing challenges and successes," Small explained But it will only succeed if enough female veteran business owners participate in the survey. 

"If they don't take the survey, then the assumptions will continue — assumptions that we don't really exist, that there isn't really a business here," Small said. "They'll go on and on with all these assumptions that really hurt female veteran business owners."

WVOBs in the Dallas area can access the survey through the VWEC website or the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank website to participate. 

Breakfast with a Banker - Summer Series

Our Summer Series of "Breakfast with a Banker" offered the opportunity for women Veteran entrepreneurs to join an early morning informal conversation about business banking. They had the opportunity to lead these conversations by bringing their most intimate concerns related to building financial relationships and identifying/securing the right financial support for their business.

We launched this series with our partners at Legacy Texas, a commercially oriented, North Texas community bank serving local entrepreneurs, businesses and families for more than 60 years. With over $8 billion in assets and 44 locations in 19 North Texas cities, they are one of the largest locally based banks in the area.

While their numbers are significant, their customer relationships are even more important. Demonstrating a consistent belief in their customers': goals, dreams, and ambitions for tomorrow.

Since 1952, Legacy Texas has been doing whatever it takes to support their customers as they advance in business and life. Take this opportunity to sit across the table and have an intimate conversation about the importance of developing a productive banking relationship for you and your business.

Connecting you is what we do and this was first of a series of partner connections brought to you by the Veteran Women's Enterprise Center.  Breakfast with a Banker will launch again January 2018, get connected now to receive early registration notices: 

GET CONNECTED!

(The Legacy Texas overview is compiled from their website data at https://www.legacytexas.com/about/index.html)

Groundbreaking Ceremony & Women Veterans Day 2017 Celebration

Southern Dallas is no stranger to making history, but this year’s historical events are especially significant as the groundbreaking for the first Women Veterans' Enterprise Center is accompanied by the first Women Veterans Day celebration, being held at the Veterans Resource Center (VRC) in southern Dallas (4900 South Lancaster Road).

This full day of activities, will kick-off at 8:00 a.m., with the official Groundbreaking Ceremony featuring an overview of the Center, testimonies from female Veteran business owners and statements of support from political, corporate and community leaders. The Center will host the Women Veteran and Small Business Luncheon highlighting their respective contributions to their industries and communities. Registration begins at 11:30 a.m. and the program will commence promptly at 12:00 p.m.

The day will end on a high note, with a Women Veterans Day Reception, commemorating this first annual event in the State of Texas acknowledging the June 12, 1948, "Women's Armed Services Integration Act," which enabled women to serve as permanent, regular members of the Armed Forces. This day provides a dedicated time to educate, validate and celebrate the contribution of women Veterans.

Our female Veterans have served our country with honor and now it’s time for us to serve them! You can be a part of this historic event, setting the stage for Women Veterans Day 2018, which will mark the 70th Anniversary of the, "Women's Armed Services Integration Act."

You don’t want to miss this day to remember as history is made in southern Dallas.