Feel Welcomed, Embraced and Celebrated

Our Commitment

In principle and in practice, NAWBO values and seeks a diverse and inclusive membership. NAWBO seeks full participation in the organization by all business owners who support our mission to empower women entrepreneurs, regardless of race, religion, age, sexual orientation, national origin or disability. NAWBO’s goal is to effectively represent the full diversity of the women business owner community and to equitably expand access to leadership opportunities for the full spectrum of our membership.

Our Strategic Goal

By 2025, NAWBO will be broadly recognized as the most inclusive and diverse organization for entrepreneurial women in the United States.

 

Our Resources For Reporting

DEIB Reporting at NAWBOMembers, national or local leaders, headquarter staff or partners are expected to report incidents that violate NAWBO’s Inclusion Code of Conduct by either:

To report incidents that violate this policy within your chapter, please contact your chapter’s DEI&B Chair or Board or Committee leader designated to spearhead the reporting and resolution process. If your chapter cannot resolve or needs additional assistance, it can contact the NAWBO National DEI&B committee at [email protected] or report on the National DEI&B Hotline listed above.

If you would like advice on a personal business incident or experience, we recommend sharing it in the University’s NAWBO Community, a private social community designed for women business owners to connect and support one another.

For Chapter Leaders

DEI&B at NAWBO

Monthly Call With DEI&B Committee Members

National Board and DEI&B Committee Members are hosting a monthly DEI&B Chapter Connect call to keep the DEI&B listening tour and conversation going strong throughout the year. This call is for all chapter leaders, especially those who are in DEI&B board or committee roles.

1st Wednesday of every month
at 9 a.m. PST/11 a.m. CT/ 12 p.m. ET

DEI&B Chapter Connect

NAWBO Institute for Entrepreneurship DEI&B Programs
  • NAWBO Institute “Brave Is” National Women’s Business Conference Scholarships
    AARP and NAWBO partnered to provide 12 scholarships to the 2020 National Women’s Business Conference and an additional six scholarships that included a virtual exhibit booth to women business owners of color age 45 or older. The 18 women participated in closed roundtable discussions during the event and were awarded 1-year NAWBO memberships.
  • AARP “Established and Ready to Grow” Accelerator Program
    AARP and NAWBO partnered to provide an educational and roundtable discussion series to 40 early-stage women business owners of color over a 6-month period. The participants of the program are aged 45 or older. The program also included a 1-year NAWBO membership.
  • Wells Fargo Grant: Launch Right Program
    Through the Wells Fargo Open for Business Grant, NAWBO developed and will execute a start-up program for women who are exiting the workforce, in rural regions, and marginalized socioeconomic communities. The workshop series with have two 6-month cohorts. NAWBO hopes to reach up to 200 under-represented women who are exploring the entrepreneurship.
  • Verizon Small Business Digital Ready
    NAWBO partnered with Verizon on its Small Business Digital Ready program that offers businesses support, aiming to enable digital readiness and drive digital transformation through customized curriculum. More than 100,000 small businesses closed due to the pandemic, with a disproportionate impact on Black and Lantinx-owned small businesses, and this program reaches those businesses most in need of support within U.S.
  • AARP “Power Your Dream” National Women’s Business Conference Scholarships
    The “Power Your Dream” Scholarship will be a repeat of the successful 2020 “Brave Is” Scholarship. The AARP collaboration will provide:
    • 18 NAWBO memberships
    • 12 Women’s Business Conference registrations
    • 6 Virtual exhibit booths to women business owners of color age 45 or older.
  • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Professional Certificate
    NAWBO is exploring avenues to provide diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging training to NAWBO members and possibly their staff to build a more inclusive workforce culture. The certificate program will be launched when funding is secured through a grant partner with a common mission of expanding diversity and inclusion education in the small business community. *In development
  • Backing Black Business Small Business Grants from Reimagine Mainstreet
    The Backing Black Business Small Business Grants program recognizes the power of women entrepreneurs and wants to keep them thriving. It’s made possible through a partnership among Reimagine Main Street and leading organizations serving Black women entrepreneurs with financial support from Meta. The program will provide cash grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to more than 200 Black women entrepreneurs who either started their businesses during the pandemic or who successfully navigated their businesses through the pandemic.
National Leadership and Investment in People
  • DEI&B Consultant
    The National team has brought on a DEI&B consultant to assist in chapter education, evaluation of diversity initiative progress and national strategy development.
  • Chapter Leader Diversity Education
    Diversity education is included as part of the Chapter President Onboarding before installation. The education will continue throughout the year and provide resources, toolkits and best practices to build inclusive chapters and local boards.
  • National Nominating Committee—Board Member Selection
    During the National Board selection process, many factors are weighed to ensure that allwomen business owners’ viewpoints are represented in the board room. The board is puttogether with women from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and industries. Members of theNational Nominating Committee collectively represent the diversity of the woman business owner ecosystem within and outside of NAWBO membership.
  • HQ Team and Training
    NAWBO National staff is comprised of women and men from a variety of backgrounds, generations and ethnicities. As the staff grows, careful consideration is made to build a diverse team and model best practices as an organization. NAWBO HQ staff are required to complete sexual harassment training that includes LBGTQ education modules.They also recently participated in three DEI&B training sessions, along with the National Board and Presidents Assembly Steering Committee.
Five-Year Strategic Imperative

The Strategic Imperative strives to build an organization that reflects all women business owners in membership and objectives by NAWBO’s 50th Anniversary.

  • DEI&B Committee
    The DEI&B Committee assists chapter leaders with the formation and implementation of their I, D & B objectives, strategies and actions.
  • DEI&B Committee Supported Focus Groups
    The DEI&B Initiative team recruited participants from every NAWBO chapter to participate in six discussion group sessions held in Q4 2020 around topics including: the effects of COVID and the BLM situations on our members of color, their perspectives on how NAWBO represents all our WBOs politically, ethnically and across religious and age segments. They inquired about additional programming, training and support NAWBO HQ could offer, that would be of value to them personally and to their businesses.
  • Focused Chapter Support
    The DEI&B Initiative team also held a session with the Columbus chapter’s D&I Committee to hear details, examples and best practices from their team. The team continues to collect and share best practices and connect with chapters to provide support as needed.
Communication Elements
  • Monthly Communication Theme
    February 2021 Theme: “Think Inclusive”—The articles, education and member profiles were focused on highlighting NAWBO’s diverse membership and providing DEI&B resources to members. These elements were featured in NAWBO One Articles and Resources, Chapter Leader Communication Toolkit and Chapter Social Media Toolkit. Topics included: Making your business more inclusive, interviews with WBOs who have experienced the rewards of inclusivity, etc.
  • Pictorial Representation Considerations
    There is a standing coordinated effort between the communications team and digital media strategist to use/create images of diverse ages, religious affiliations, ethnicities, cultures and economic backgrounds in national branded collateral. This encompasses all images published on the national website, social media channels, or included in print and digital materials.
National and Virtual Events
  • Connect and Learn Speaker Selection
    Between the months of March 2020 through December 2021, not including the months of July and December when virtual programming goes dark, have featured 1-2 women of color per month as our featured “Lunch & Learn/Connect & Learn” speakers.
  • Women’s Business Conference Keynote and Breakout Speaker Selection
    When building the speakers and agenda for national events, such as the National Women’s Business Conference, careful consideration is taken to include diverse women and men. The goal is for all women business owners to be able to connect and identify with the journeys and materials presented at the event. Attendees should not only feel represented but included and valued in the discussions/activities.
  • DEI&B Education and Training Sessions
    The DEI&B Initiative team coordinated an Inclusion & Diversity panel discussion session at the February 2021 National Leadership Academy. DEI&B education was also included in 2021 National Women’s Business Conference sessions and is the main focus of the January 2022 Leadership Academy.
  • NextGen Initiative
    For more than five years NAWBO National has been building strategy to engage and support the next generation of female entrepreneurs. These young founders are in the ideation stage, emerging or established and range in age from 10-35 years old. The committee has been able to work in partnership college business programs to provide membership scholarships. The NextGen Committee produces the NextGen Forum 2-day virtual event that has specific education, resources and networking opportunities for these young women. NAWBO HQ does not withhold resources or community based on any female founder’s age. Furthermore, the NextGen Committee goes to lengths to reach this young generation and provide them resources in formats that fit their lifestyle.
  • Multi-Lingual Educational and Translation Services
    During the National Women’s Business Conference and other national events (as needed) translation services are provided in Spanish and French. During 2021, NAWBO HQ partnered with Facebook to produce a digital media training in Spanish for non-English speaking Latina WBOs. NAWBO HQ is working with other corporate partners to build a multi-lingual library of resources for members and non-members in the NAWBO Institute.
  • DEI&B Virtual Events to Encourage Dialogue
    NAWBO launched a monthly series of DEI&B Circle-format events to encourage CANDID CONVERSATIONS around the DEI&B journey within NAWBO and in member businesses. We are also hosting a DEI&B Open Forum in January 2022 to share how far we’ve come and where we’re headed in our DEI&B commitment and efforts.

NEW DEI&B Actions

While we are proud of the initiatives we have taken in recent years to deepen our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEI&B) as we seek to achieve our goal of becoming the most diverse national business organization by 2025, we are committed to doing more to further our organization’s DEI&B commitment. These include these recently launched tools and programs:

  • We created a new NAWBO incident reporting hotline where members and partners can provide critical feedback to help us grow, understand and be better—to help unify the community of women we serve. This is now an available option through NAWBO’s toll-free number: 800-556-2926.
  • We launched a new website landing page (you’re here!) dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. This page will include our diversity statement, accomplishments and upcoming actions.
  • We implemented an incident reporting web form. Members, national or local leaders, headquarter staff or partners are expected to use this form to report incidents that violate NAWBO’s Inclusion Code of Conduct as we all work together to create a culture in which every woman business owner feels included, supported and cherished.
  • We added this web form to the email signature of every NAWBO HQ staff member for increased accessibility. We will also promote it through all appropriate communications channels.
  • We provided DEI&B training to our NAWBO HQ staff, National Board members and Presidents Assembly Steering Committee (PASC) members. This same training was held for our chapter leaders and is now being offered to members nationwide.
  • We introduced a monthly virtual DEI&B circle-format series designed to facilitate CANDID CONVERSATIONS about the unique experiences of our members around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging—both in NAWBO and in their businesses.
  • We rolled out NAWBO’s Inclusion Code of Conduct. The purpose of this policy is to provide members, National or local leaders, headquarter staff, and partners with a process to support addressing concerns that could be inconsistent with or in violation of our mission, vision, and Diversity Statement, or that do not support an inclusive culture. NAWBO will regularly review this policy for necessary revisions. We appreciate feedback from our members to assist us in this process. Click here to view the latest Inclusion Code of Conduct.

Our Progress

View the actions we have taken toward reaching this goal in recent years.

Code of Conduct

View our Inclusion Code of Conduct.

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