Diary

Women’s Business Center hits the cash ceiling

by Alia Wong | Jun 9, 2010

Hawaii Women’s Business Center / A sign reading “closed indefinitely” remains on the windows of the Hawaii Women’s Business Center (HWBC), revealing the uncertain and abrupt nature of the organization’s recent shutdown.

Effective May 14 of this year, the HWBC was forced to close down for an undetermined period of time, due, in large part, to the center’s inability to match a primary grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration with program, membership and donation revenues, according to a Pacific Business News article posted on the HWBC website.

As yet another sad sign of the times, the center’s closure followed a steep decrease in earnings from program fees, outside grants and other contributions.

Focused on helping both economically underprivileged women pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors and well-established business owners further develop their businesses, the HWBC is a private nonprofit that opened in 1998 with financial assistance from the American Savings Bank and the SBA.

In addition to limited funding from the Office of Women Business Owners Division of the SBA–which provided about 30 percent of the center’s operational costs–the HWBC relies on matched external funding, acquired mostly through membership and program fees and donations, according to the HWBC website.

The center also received assistance from Mayor Mufi Hannemann, whose Office of Economic Development oversaw the Small Business Resource Center, an umbrella organization of which the HWBC was a part. The mayor provided the HWBC with a significantly reduced rent for its space in downtown Honolulu.

The HWBC offered an array of services to both current and prospective business owners, regardless of gender, including counseling, training workshops and business-plan study groups.

The status of the HWBC remains unknown, and those associated with the center have been unable to provide any definitive answer as to what will happen to it.

“There is no additional information available at this time,” wrote Michael Youth, lead business development specialist at the SBA’s Hawaii District Office. “It is likely there has been no change in the status of the Center.”

A spokesperson for the HWBC did not respond to the Weekly’s inquiries before press time.

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