Deep Dive: Access to Capital for Small Businesses
Hello, WISE friends. We are excited to present to you our first edition of Deep Dive, a monthly, themed email containing lots of great resources to let you dive deep and learn more about a specific topic. The theme of this month’s Deep Dive is access to capital - getting the funds you need to launch, grow, or just operate your business.Â
Below, you’ll find all kinds of resources to help you on your way to financing. In the Dive Deep section, you’ll learn the basics of what’s available and how to access. In Watch, Read, Listen, we have a recent webinar with local lenders, a series of Power Hours on crowdfunding, access to capital, and microloans, and some useful reading. Finally, in the Connect section, we’ve listed a handful of relevant
Dive deep into accessing capital
The SBA has a couple great resources to learn more on this topic. Start with this overview of how to fund your business to get a lay of the land.
Next, take a jaunt over to Ascent (SBA’s women-specific learning platform) to explore Journey 4: Your Business’ Financial Strategy. This module lays the groundwork for understanding the fundamentals: financial statements, forecasting, and financial KPIs.Â
Then, keep on trekking through the next module, Journey 5: Access to Capital. On this path, you’ll dive deeper into various funding sources, from traditional bank loans to alternative small business funding and the universe of equity financing. Â
Read, watch, listen
May’s recommendations in this section revolve around local sources of capital.Â
As part of our Financial Management & Access to Capital workshop series, we spoke to a group of representatives from local lenders. They took questions from participants and talked about getting loan ready, how their institutions serve women-owned businesses, the way they give back to the community, and more. If you’re interested in getting a business loan from a local bank or coop, this is a can’t-miss watch.
We also hosted a series of Power Hours on different types of capital:
- Sherri Falck, Assistant VP of Pursuit, talked about microloans
- Elizabeth Eichorn of iFundWomen dove into all things crowdfunding
- Alex Kostakis, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice at Whitman School of Management covered the basics of bootstrapping
For the readers, we also recommend:
- A series of blog posts we authored, including on crowdfunding and microloans
- Strategic Bootstrapping, a short book by Matthew Rutherford
- An article about CDFIs
Connect
Some good resources to check out from time to time are listed below. If you have favorite accounts related to access to capital that aren’t listed here, let us know!
- Bench Accounting’s website and Facebook page
- Quickbook’s website
- Pursuit Lending on Facebook
- Cooperative Federal Credit Union
- IndieGoGo on Instagram